A canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, the indispensable condition for the existence of a prosperous trading station at Suez, appears to have existed in very early times. Classical writers say that it was first planned by Sesostris (Rameses II.), and again undertaken by Darius I., but first completed by the Ptolemies (Arist., Meteor., i. 14; Strabo, xiv. 25). The town at its terminus was Arsinoe or Cleopatris. The work was renewed by Trajan under the name Augustus amnis, but the trade from the East with Egypt still went mainly overland from Myus Hormus or from Berenice on the Red Sea, below the Gulf of Suez, to Coptus in Upper Egypt. Instead of Arsinoe later writers name the port of Clysma, which the Arabs corrupted into Ḳolzum, calling the Red Sea the Sea of Kolzum. On the Moslem conquest of Egypt the canal was restored, and is said to have remained open more than a century, till the time of Manṣúr. According to Mas'údí (Morúj, iv. 98), Hárún al-Rashíd projected a canal across the isthmus of Suez, but was persuaded that it would be dangerous to lay open the coasts of Arabia to the Greek navy. Kolzum retained some trade long after the closing of the canal, but in the 13th century it lay in ruins, and the neighbouring Suez, which had taken its place, was, as Yáḳút tells us, little better than a ruin. From Mokaddasi, p. 196, it may be inferred that the name of Suez originally denoted Bir Suweis. Throughout the Middle Ages, as in Roman times, the main route from Cairo to the Red Sea was up the Nile to Kris, and then through the desert to Aidháb. With the Ottoman conquest Suez became more important as a naval and trading station. Ships were built there from the 16th century onwards, and in the 18th century an annual fleet of nearly twenty vessels (Niebuhr) sailed from it to Jiddah, the port of correspondence with India. When the French occupied the town in 1798, and Bonaparte was full of his canal project, Suez was much decayed, and the conflicts which followed on its occupation in 1800 by an English fleet laid a great part of the town in ruins. The overland mail route from England to India by way of Suez was opened in 1837. The regular Peninsular and Oriental steamer service began a few years later, and in 1857 a railway was opened from Cairo through the desert. This line is now abandoned in favour of the railway which follows the canal from Suez to Ismailia, and then ascends the Wady Tumefiát to Zaḳázíḳ, whence branches diverge to Cairo and Alexandria.

Suez Canal. The great engineering features have been already treated of under Canal (vol. iv. pp. 789-792). The opening of the canal to a great extent revolutionized the main lines of international traffic. More especially it has restored to the Mediterranean countries a share in the commerce of the world such as they have not possessed since the beginning of the modern period. In doing so it has naturally caused the decay of certain stations (such as St Helena) on the ocean highways previously in vogue. In the case of sailing vessels, however, the winds at the Red Sea entrance of the canal are so frequently contrary that much of the advantage of the shortness of route is lost, and these vessels consequently still take the old-fashioned detours. Traffic, too, in the canal has so greatly increased that in 1886 a vessel was considered fortunate that got through in forty-eight hours. In 1882 shipowners having expressed dissatisfaction with the condition of the service, schemes for rival canals were started,—one for a fresh-water canal from Alexandria to Cairo and thence to Suez by way of Tel-el-Kebir, another for a canal from Alexandria to Mansurah and Ismailia, and then parallel to the original canal to Suez, and a third for the construction of a second Suez canal, to be finished in 1888. These proposals all fell to the ground; but at length, in 1886, it was determined to widen the existing canal so as to accommodate the increased traffic, and the works are now in progress. Originally constructed by French capital, the Suez Canal has passed more and more into the financial ownership as well as under the political protection of England. In 1875 the British Government purchased 176,602 shares from the khedive of Egypt at the price of £3,976,582, or, including commission and expenses, £4,076,622, and exchequer bonds were issued to the value of £4,000,000. By opening up a passage by which the faunal forms of the Red Sea anil of the Mediterranean may respectively advance north and south into regions from which they have hitherto been excluded, the canal has produced some curious results, which have been lately investigated by Dr Conrad Keller of Zurich (“Fauna im Suez-Kanal u. Diffusion de Mediter. u. Eryth. Thierwelt,” in Neue Denkschriften cl. allg. schweizer Ges. f. Naturwiss., Zurich 1883). Deep-sea forms are, of course, prevented passing by the shallowness of the canal; and the sandy nature of the soil, the large lakes, the currents, the disturbing influence exerted by the continual movement of vessels, and the excessive saltness of the water all tend to limit and retard the progress of even those forms most adapted to make their way through such a channel. The salinity of the water is much greater than that of the Mediterranean or the Red Sea. This is due mainly to two causes,—the rapid evaporation to which the water in the canal is subjected and the gradual melting of the deposits of salt (the result of previous evaporation in distant ages) in some of the depressions through which the canal is carried. In the Bitter Lakes, for example, it was found in 1872 that on an average each cubic mètre of water contained 156·42 lb of salt, or about three times as much as ordinary sea water. A certain number of forms common to the Bed Sea and the Mediterranean appeal’ to have migrated from their original homes when in Quaternary times the isthmus was still a lagoon. These being discounted, the following remain as the result of the recent connexion established between the seas: (1) from the Mediterranean Pholas candida (as far as Ismailia), Solen vagina, Sphaeroma serrata (to the south of Timsah Lake), Cardium edule, Gammarns sp. (to the nearer end of the Great Bitter Lake), Solea vulgaris, Umbrina cirrhosa, Ascidia intestinalis, and Labrax lupus (to the Red Sea); (2) from the Bed Sea seventeen forms were found journeying, but one only, Mytilus variabilis, had got out into the Mediterranean proper; Ostracion cubicus and Caranx macrophthalmus had just got en route, and Pristipoma stridens (the curious fish that utters a cry when caught), Mactra olorina, and Cerithium scabridurn were found in Lake Menzaleh. This lake seems to prove in the meantime an obstacle to the passage of eight other species.

The following figures are in continuation of the table in vol. iv. p. 792. [table]

In 1883 10 francs 50 cents were charged per ton (net tonnage), and pilotage dues amounted to 70 cents per ton on an average; on 1st July 1884 pilotage dues were abolished; and in 1885 the transit dues were reduced to 9 francs 50 cents per ton.