- _ View of Kantara - _ The sill of El Guisr
Official Journal of the French Empire Monday, 29 November 1869 (n°328 p1527)
The next day, 17th November, the boats departed for Suez. The Aigle led the flotilla of various ships carrying princes, and this cortèege, the first to go down the canal now it was open to commerce from all over the world, was a most imposing sight.
Wednesday 1 December 1869 (n°330 p1535)
The inauguration flotilla, headed by the Aigle, arrived at Ismailia from Port Said in just a few hours. It had been a very happy crossing. On leaving Port Said, you enter the great lakes of Menzaleh whose vast surfaces are cut by the canal banks and where you can just make out the muddy islands and the flat banks with the odd Arab fisherman’s hut on them. You then pass Kantara, once an important town during the ancient Egyptian dynasties and, it is said, during Roman rule. Today, this large centre of inhabitants has disappeared and you can only find a few traces of its past splendour. Kantara is nothing more than a Compagnie de Suez encampment and wooden houses have replaced the ancient buildings. But the passage of the canal near this little settlement will give it new life. Further along, near the gypsum banks which reflect the sunlight, you reach El Ferdane where the Company set up a vast gypsum quarry which supplied raw materials to most of the constructions on the isthmus. Next comes El Guisr, a huge sand dune stretching nearly four leagues, crossing the bed of the canal and which was the cause of a great deal of long, hard work. In this vast desert, there is now a new hamlet of nearly 2,000 people who have constructed a mosque and a church.