* His position was wrong by about seventy-five miles. But he can hardly be blamed: his charts were torn to pieces and soaked in officers' blood.

* So named by George Orwell, only four years before.

* At one time the project's overseer was a peculiarly cruel man named Ma Shumou, better known as Mahu, the Barbarous One. He was said to have eaten a steamed two-year-old child each day he worked on the Canal – and to this day naughty children are warned by their mothers to behave, ‘or else Mahu will get you!’