The true story of a legendary vessel

The Suez Canal
[1869-1880]

In the meanwhile, Mehemet-Ali dies. His grandson Abdas, is his successor and begins negotiations with Turkey that annul part of the consented advantages that were given to him by this grandfather. The closeness of the two countries is short lived since Abdas is assassinated and replaced by Saïd, the son of Mehemet-Ali, whom would follow in the footsteps of his father and turn towards Europe. His son Ishmael (1863-1879) would take on the title of Khedive (viceroy). Egypt is de-facto independent.

1869: a French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, worked on the Suez Canal. It had been talked about for 30 years, ever since Solomon Pasha had opened the dossier with some French polytechiciens. The canal seemed like a strong economic opportunity for European sailors. The inauguration was a grand affair. The imperial French couple attended. The struggle between the French and the English for influence is ever present.

The first consequence would be the development of tourism. For the soldiers, civil servants who travelled to India and the East, Port Saïd had become the mandatory stop over site. Once one was already there, why not get off the ship for a couple of days and visit Egypt? Cook was ready to seize the opportunity. The market opened up and divided into two parts: those who were brought from Europe, and those whom were found on site. In 1869, at the opening of the canal, Cook organized his first "Nile Tour" on a rented steam-ship from Khedive.

It seems that in 1847, Solomon Pasha had lain the first stones of the Esna dam, and for the Nile began to flow regularly and one could navigate the Nile more or less all year long. This pushed the Khedive to buy some boats from England to keep the postal service regular. An embryo of river traffic began to exist.
Cook was lucky. The Reverend Christophe Newman Hall was a participant on his first cruise. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Reverend Hall was known as a great man. Churches were full when he preached, and his sermons and leaflets sold millions of exemplars. And the Reverend Hall came back enthusiastic about the cruise! Nonetheless, in all his sermons, he bragged about his Nile river cruise and his friend Thomas Cook. Naturally customers flocked. In 1870, Cook opened a permanent office in Cairo.

The beginnings are marked by a struggle: An Englishman, David Roliman, had the concessions of the river service. The strategy of Cook would be simple: he would ask for and obtain the same concessions just south of Aswan and he would rent all of his ships from Khedive. Delighted, the Khedive divided the river services into two parts: Robinson would be in charge of the regular lines of river traffic, and Cook would manage only foreign tourist service. It worked out well; it was exactly what he wanted. "He kept the ladies, and left the fellas up to his competition".

Some of the boats from the 1870's, we know nothing about. They were steam-ships for the most part, their allure was very British, they strangely resembled the steam-ships constructed on the site at Clyde River, but the ships at Clyde as popular as they were, were imitated by everyone. The rare photographs of that time period show overloaded ships yet these ships were often steam-ships assuring regular routes.

In 1876, Egypt economically hit rock bottom. The country fell into debt and so the French and English created a loan bank to help the Egyptians, of which the direction is given to Sir Evelyn Barring (later to become Lord Cromer). Egypt is under supervision. France has been weakened by its war debt from 1870 and this leaves de-facto the British to manage the country.

From 1877 on, Cook obtained the concession for all transports on the Nile and constructed the Luxor Hotel Winter Palace. The idea of it was to be impressive: in general Cook preferred to make agreements with hotels and not to engage in the actual construction of them, but the Luxor became a turntable when there wasn't any lodging to be had. Beggars can't be choosers!
In 1880, Thomas Cook & Son obtained the concession for the Egyptian postal service. The affaire seemed uninteresting at first, except for one essential clause: a clause that allowed Cook to construct his own ships and therefore ending his obligations with the Khedive.