e?9 CHAPTER IV.

THE TURKISH MARCH INTO THESSALY DURING the night between April 18th and iqth the Turks carried the field telegraph line from Elassona up to the summit of the Meluna Pass. All that day the Turkish centre made no advance. Riza Pasha was getting the guns of the reserve artillery* did the Turkish guns bombard the heights, and again and again did the Albanians rush down the slopes and endeavour to scale the cliff ; but the fire poured on them from above was murderous, and the batteries behind them had littleeffect on parapets ofrock and stone . . . over the pass. For the last few hundred yards of the ascent theyhad to be dragged up by teams of fifty men. The Greeks heldthe villageof Ligaria, on the downward road into the plain,and no attempt was made to drive them out. But to right and left the fightingcontinued. On the Turkish left Hamdi Pasha was engaged all day with the brigadeof Colonel Kaklamanos on Mount Godaman, but made little or noprogress. On the extreme right Hairi Pasha barely held his own against the converging attack of Smolenski's brigade issuing from the Pass of Reveni, and the Kritiri, however, did not command the road from theMeluna Pass to Karadere nor the roadbeyond. It was a strong position which precluded any direct attack onTyrnavos, and which checked any advance through the defile of Skompa ; but beyond that, it was not of any great value, and probably maingenerals would have marked it in front and rear, and left it behind." On Tuesday, the 20th, Edhem Pa-ha, having given his men a day'- res't, and supplied them with cartridges, began his leisurely advanceinto the plain. As the leading brigade of Haidar Pasha's division RIZA PASHA, TURKISH MINISTER OF V. \K. {Photo: Abdullah, Constantin, :-of Colonel Dimopoulos, which was ng westward up the gorge of the Xerias. Near the centre Neshat Pasha made an unsuccessful attack on Mount Kritiri, which was held by the left ofColonel Mastrapas's brigade.

["he troops who held the hill were the kilted Euzonoi, the riflemen of the Greek army, supportedby a battery of mountainguns. The hill, e by nature,had been further strength by entrenchments and breastworks of stone "Along the heights of a scarped cliff the entrenchments bristled," says Mr. Clive Bigham, the Times correspondent;"below lay a rocky gorge,and beyond it on our (i.e. the Turkish) Mde '' I reverse slope, whichserved the enemy as an admirable glacis. Again and again came down from the pass the Greeks evacuated Karadere or I.igaria, after firing a few shots. Colonel Mastrapas retiredinto the plain, his left on Kritiri, his right thrown back to the village of Deliler. His centre was near Mati. Behind him was the Xerias River, now a scantystream,lordableat manypoints. Clumps of wood and rocky knolls gave here and there >d deal of cover to the Greeks. Hamdi Pasha was still fighting in the hills away to the eastward, by Lake Nezeros, a fight at longrange, which might last daysyet without decisive result. On the right, away to the southwc-t,ITailiPasha was defending himself against the persistent attack of the Greeks at Damasi, I: the day's lighting was chiefly a cannonade