<P> Venetian leaders, driven to desperation, contemplated digging a waterway between the Red Sea and the Nile--anticipating the Suez Canal by almost 400 years--to bring the luxury trade flooding to their doors again . But this remained a dream . </P> <P> Despite entering negotiations with Egypt's ruling Mamelukes, the Venetian plan to build the canal was quickly put to rest by the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, led by Sultan Selim I </P> <P> During the French campaign in Egypt and Syria in late 1798, Napoleon showed an interest in finding the remnants of an ancient waterway passage . This culminated in a cadre of archaeologists, scientists, cartographers and engineers scouring northern Egypt . Their findings, recorded in the Description de l'Égypte, include detailed maps that depict the discovery of an ancient canal extending northward from the Red Sea and then westward toward the Nile . </P> <P> Later, Napoleon, who would become French Emperor in 1804, contemplated the construction of a north--south canal to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea . But the plan was abandoned because it wrongly concluded that the waterway would require locks to operate . These would be very expensive and take a long time to construct . This decision was based on an erroneous belief that the Red Sea was 10 m (33 ft) higher than the Mediterranean . The error was the result of using fragmentary survey measurements taken in wartime during Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition . In 1819 the Pacha of Egypt undertook some canal work . </P>

Make a report on how india has benefited with the opening of the suez canal