  1. MY DEAR CHILDREN,—I have just sailed through a very wonderful canal. It joins two great seas together, and is now part of the way to India. 2. By means of this canal we can sail from England to India in three weeks. Before it was made the voyage took three months or more. 3. The canal was made more than forty years ago by a Frenchman. He dug a great ditch, and joined together a number of lakes. By doing so he made a waterway from sea to sea. This waterway is about a hundred miles long. 4. I joined my ship at the town which stands at the north end of the canal. There is nothing to see in the town except the lighthouse and the shops. On the sea wall there is a statue of the Frenchman who made the canal. 5. As we lay off the town we could see many little boats darting to and fro. The boatmen were dressed in all the colours of the rainbow—red, blue, green, and orange. In one boat there were men and women playing and singing songs. 6. By the side of our ship men were swimming in the water. I threw a piece of silver into the water. One of the men dived, and caught it before it reached the bottom. 7. On the other side of the ship there were great barges full of coal. Hundreds of men and women carried this coal to the ship in little baskets upon their heads. They walked up and down a plank, and all the time they made an awful noise which they called singing. 8. When all the coal was on board, the ship began to steam slowly along the narrow canal. No ship is allowed to sail more than four miles an hour, lest the "wash" should break down the banks. 9. Soon we passed out of the narrow canal into one of the lakes. Our road was marked by buoys. Away to right and to left of us stretched the sandy desert. 10. In the afternoon we passed a station, where I saw a number of camels laden with boxes of goods. They were going to travel across the sands for many days. 11. The sun went down in a sky of purple and gold. Then a large electric light shone forth from our bows. It threw a broad band of white light on the water and on the banks of the canal. Where the light touched the sands it seemed to turn them into silver. 12. In less than twenty-four hours we reached the town at the south end of the canal. A boat came out from the shore, and this letter is going back with it.—Love to you all. FATHER. |
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