Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 113, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1916 — SUEZ CANAL and PORT SAID [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SUEZ CANAL and PORT SAID

PORT Said, situated at the northern entrance to the Suez .canal, has, by force of many circumstances, become one of the most important outposts of the vast British empire, says a bulletin of the National Geographic society. It is the British storehouse in the Levantine world; it is a British arsenal and troop station of rank; it is the base for defense of the all-important route to India and for offense against the Mediterranean and Red sea flanks of the Turks. A pioneer city in the ancient East; one entirely the product of modern times, without traditions, customs, or proprieties; a heterogeneous, undeflnable city of sweaty toll, gigantic business, of all races and of all the outcasts, Port Said has been a highly Interesting phenomenon since its birth. It early earned a world-wide reputation for wickedness, beside which the modest fame of the western mining caifip seems to merge Into the mild and conventional. The most undesirable elements in the eastern and Levantine nations met, mingled and made life one excitement after another at Port Said. And the damp of the climate, the incessant clatter of shipping, the drear scenery, the neverending coaling operations and the often fierce heat have combined to give the town a renown of a most unenviable sort. Not So Wicked In Later Years. The English, however, have steadily dampened the ardorous excesses of the busy, modern Babel; and, with the extensive harbor improvements of 1903-1909, with the‘addition of a large cotton export to the town’s activities, and with the building of a standardgauge railroad to Cairo, a better class of people have sought new interests in Port Said. Thus, with the increasing of the port’s commercial possibilities and the coming of the merchants, the place has been considerably raised in the social scale and lowered in the scale of lurid interest. The port city was founded in 1859, and its site was determined by the needs of the great canal. It lies on a low, narrow, desolate strip of sand that separates the Mediterranean from Lake Menzaleh. It is on the western side of the canal. The harbors of the port, improved by splendid modern

works, are safe and commodious. Port Said is rated as the largest coaling station in the world, and it is one of the world’s important depots for all manner of maritime supplies. The population of the city is about 50,000, including representatives of every race and individuals representing all races at once. Port Soudan Also Is New. Another interesting city of the near East is Port Soudan, which was built to contract under a capable military administration and designed to meet all the requirements of a great future trade brought about by the development of the primitive Central African

hinterland. It is just ten years old and is one of the great latter-day achievements toward the reclaiming of the Dark Continent for the white man. and civilization. More than this, however, it is a strategic link in the Brit-; ish empire, fitted so well into the chain that today it is one of the most important factors in the defense of! Egypt’s back door. Port Soudan is a brand new harbor,; planned in all the details of its con-; struction and outfitting, and then build-i ed as a whole. It was a successful, port from the first, and it is now better prepared to handle a mad rush of war business than most of the ports in> the middle East. Through this port. Should it be necessary for the defense of lower Egypt, Great Britain might; pour all of the strength of her Indian; empire without any such tear of a traffic jam as that realized by munitions Import at Vladivostok. Army supplies and troops might be bandied in any quantity there, the most modern port on the Red sea. A railway line connects the port with the Wady Haifa on the Nile, whence, by steamer and rail, it is connected with Cairo and the porta of, lower Egypt. The railway was opened: in 1906 and the stimulus that lt| brought to the country went a long way toward Justifying British confidence in the future of the Soudan. The railway has a terminus also at Port Suakln, a less suitable harbor a little to the south of the made-to-con-tract city. On a Barren, Hat Plain. Mecca, the holy city of the Mohammedan world, lies a little to the north across the Red sea from Port Soudan. The port is 700 miles by boat south of Suez, the southern terminus of the great canal, and 495 miles by rail northeast of Khartum. It is situated in an arid plain, backed by a fringe of hills and barren save for mimosa thorns. The climate is very hot and damp, full of fever-danger for the European, and this has proved the great* est drawback for the city. Soudan was planned in 1905. Ito laying out and equipping went forward steadily until 1909, by which time the government had spent more than |4/> 500,000 on the town and harbor works. Commodious docks, outfitted with eleo trie cranes and other up-to-date harbor

machinery, together with administratlon and storage buildings, were constructed according to generous specifications. The new port was a successful venture from the start, doing a business of more than >2,000,000 in the first year of its existence. By the outbreak of the war it was handling a rapid-growing business of about twice the amount in value of Its first year’s work. Raw cotton, ivory, sesame, durra, skins, gum and senna, the Soudan's leading products, constituted the new port’s exports, and its imports were mostly provisions, manufactures and timber.