However, after only one year, he was invited by Prince Henry, the son of King William II to establish a trading post at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal, near Port Said in Egypt.

Although his contemporaries advised against the venture, Mulder lived in Egypt from August 1873 to August 1876, and built the main house, a warehouse, a coal shed, a goods shed, service residences, two piers and the foundation for a water reservoir as well as a hotel.

The trading post proved commercially successful, but the venture was terminated with the unexpected death of Prince Henry in 1876.

Mulder returned to the Netherlands, where he built the Change Canal in The Hague, as well as a steam-powered tramway in Haarlem.

His contemporaries in Japan included Cornelis Johannes van Doorn and Johannis de Rijke and George Arnold Escher.