THE GRECO-TURKISH WAR. 662 who had felt the want of it on tlae sunscorched border hills. Then they reconnoitred the ground held by the Greeks, and, to make Mastrapas show his hand, brought the guns into action among the standing corn near the hamlet. Tlae Greek guns replied from a low moundin front. Further back it could be seen that tlae infantry were holding the edges of the clumps of woodalong the river. The firing did not last long, and on the Turkish side there were no casualties. The Greeks also seem not to have lost a man.

Hairi, content merely to hold his own, was standing on tlae defensive at Damasi. This was the situation at theclose of the fourth day of theThessalian campaign.

On this same day General Makris, who commanded at the front, had informed the Crown Prince that he considered tlae position on the Xerias untenable, and was about to withdraw fromit. To have done so would have been to expose both wings of the Greek army, and Prince Constantine immediately countermanded tlae intended retreat, and ordered the brigade of Colonel Antoniades, and part of that of Colonel Dimopoulos, which had been till now engaged in the movement against Damasi on the left, to march by Tyrnavos to the supportof Makris and Colonel Mastrapas. This movement wasnot completed on tlae 21st. Nextday Smolenski, who hadthus been deprived of the help of thetwo otherbrigades,desisted fromthe attack on Damasi,and set to work to entrenchhistroops on the ground they had won in the Pass of Reveni. Neshat Pasha ceased to bombard Kritiri. Intheplain in the centre all was quiet.

The only movement was the advance of Hakki Pasha's division on the left centre towards Deliler. He had been ordered to occupy the town, but started late, and bivouacked for the night on the left of the cavalry division. But even so his advance threatened the line of retreat of Colonel Kaklamanos, the hill track from Nezeros by Deliler and the Salamvria Valley. There was some desultory fighting between Kaklamanos and Hamdi's troops, but on the whole the 22nd was a day that marked a lull in the campaign.

On Wednesday, the 21st. the Turkish army was still toiling across the Meluna Pass by the narrowroad. By noonEdhem Pasha hadthree infantry divisions (Haidar's, Hakki's, and Memdhuk's) over the hills, besides an independent brigade under Nairn Pasha and the cavalry and reserveartillery,between 30,000 and 40,000 men in all. Still he made no attempt to attack in force the weak line formedby the Greek brigade in his front. Hakki's division occupied the villageof Karatsali on the left centre. Memdhuk was onhis right,Haidarand thereserve artillery further back near the pass. Out in front were the cavalry and Nairn's brigade near Kainakbashi. The battery thatGrunabkoff hadbrought into action the day before had been reinforced by four more, and at ten a.m. the thirty guns opened fire against the knoll in front occupied by theGreek artillery. They replied with four batteries (twenty-four guns). The long-range artillery duel went on for six hours in leisurely fashion. The fire was never rapid, and it was almostabsolutely harmless. On the Greek side one man was killed. On the Turkish side two men and three horses were hit. The firing ended at four o'clock, for no particularreason, except perhaps that everyone was tired of it. This cannonade was tlae action described at the time as the "Battleof Mati."

Pressed m front by Hamdi, and threatened by Hakki's advance, Kaklamanos had fallen back upon the Xerias,near Mussalar, in tlae night ot the 22nd. By the morning of the 23rd he was in touch with the right of tlaeGreek line along tlae river. General Makris' centre lay east and west from Mati to the hills nearKritiri, withhis right thrown back towards the gorge of the Xerias. He was holding a front of ten miles with only three brigades, and was necessarily weak everywhere. Only Edhem Pasha's dilatoriness had enabled him to remain so long north of the Xerias,and he was quite correct in his report to the Crown Prince that tlaepo was untenable.

In tlae hills on the left Hamdi Pasha was pushing Kaklamanos back in leisurely fashion. EdhemPasha, seated on a rug at the top of the Meluna Pass, surrounded by his staff and tlae correspondents, and entertaining them with coffee and cigarettes, had watched the day's manoeuvres from that point of vantage. He could hear the siring away to the left drawing gradually nearer,andin theafternoon a despatch from Hamdi told him that the Greek resistance in that direction was at last giving way. To the right front, from the hills to the south, the roar of Neshat's guns told that the bombardment of Kritiri was still in progress. Still further off, But at last Edhem Pasha was coming on. On the morning of the 23rd, Hakki Pasha's division,with five batteries,occupied Deliler,and came into action against the Greek right in