They followed every sentence with the keenest attention, and Cleopatra's language grew more impassioned, gained greater power and depth, the more plainly she perceived the unfeigned, enthusiastic admiration paid her by her listeners.
Even the oldest and most experienced men did not consider the surprising proposal utterly impossible and impracticable.

Some, among them Gorgias, who during the restoration of the Serapeum had helped his father on the eastern frontier of the Delta, and thus became familiar with the neighbourhood of Heroonopolis, feared the difficulties which an elevation of the earth in the centre of the isthmus would place in the way of the enterprise.

Yet, why should an undertaking which was successful in the days of Sesostris appear unattainable?
The shortness of the time at their disposal was a still greater source of anxiety, and to this was added the information that one hundred and twenty thousand workmen had perished during the restoration of the canal which Pharaoh Necho nearly completed.

The water way was not finished at that period, because an oracle had asserted that it would benefit only the foreigners, the Phoenicians.
All these points were duly considered, but could not shake the opinion that, under specially favourable conditions, the Queen's plan would be practicable; though, to execute it, obstacles mountain-high were to be conquered.

All the labourers in the fields, who had not been pressed into the army, must be summoned to the work.
Not an hour's delay was permitted.