THREE or four months have elapsed since the preceding pages were written; the latest intelligence from Greece has brought down the account of military transactions to the season beyond which the Turks are unable to prosecute active operations, and the result of the fourth campaign of the insurrection is ascertained.

By land the situation of the contending parties is not very different from what it was at the close of the first year; but the continuation of an insurrection implies victory to the insurgents, notwithstanding any partial misfortunes to which it may be liable.

In western Greece, we are not surprised to find, from causes which have already been explained, that the Albanian chieftains have made little or no exertions in the cause of the Porte, and that military opertions have been almost suspended in that quarter. During the greater part of the summer Mavrokordáto had his head quarters at Lygovitzi, near the western bank of the Achelous, and Omer Vrioni at Kervasará, the ancient Limnæa at the south-eastern extremity of the Am

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bracic gulf. In eastern Greece, an attempt was made by the Seraskier Dervish Pasha to penetrate from the plains of Thessaly to the Corinthian gulf, by the route which leads from Zitúni to Salona (Lamia to Amphissa), as an essential preliminary to the plan of campaign which has been described. By this movement he would at once have effected a junction with the Turkish ships in the gulf, and would thus communicate with the garrisons which are invested by the enemy by land at Patræ and Naupactus.

The shortness of the distance from the head of the Crissæan bay to the Maliac gulf, added to the facility of maritime intercourse, which the latter affords with Thessalonica and the Hellespont, renders the route from Zitúni to Sálona the most important passage in Greece next to the Isthmus. Its military strength is equal to its importance: and hence all the endeavours of the Turks to maintain the communication between the gulf of Corinth and Thessaly by this route have hitherto been frustrated. It traverses two of the most remarkable passes in Greece: of these the northern crosses a ridge which lies between the plain of the Spercheius and the Dorian valley, near the sources of the Cephissus, and connects mount

Callidromus with the great summits of Eta: the southern is a narrow defile separating Parnassus from the same mountains.

Of the former of these two passes, the danger was very much diminished to the Turks by their easy access into the valley of Doris, which, by its continuity with the lower valley of the Cephissus, and with the plains of Boeotia, extending to the barriers of the Isthmus, has generally been open to the Turkish troops. But the narrow rocky pass, which leads from Gavria, the ancient Cytinium, into the celebrated plain, which extends from the heights of Amphissa and Delphi to the shore of the Crissæan bay, can never be traversed by them without the greatest danger, while the enemy remains in possession of the mountains on either side of it.

The Seraskier, however, by directing all his efforts to this point, succeeded, in the month of July last, in passing through the defiles; but at Ampliani, about eight miles from Sálona, he was attacked and defeated by the insurgents, and, after having suffered some further loss in his retreat, he resumed his positions in Doris and in Thessaly, without having effected the smallest advantage to the Ottoman cause.

In concert with this operation of the Seraskier, an attempt to recover Athens was at the same time made by Omér, a landed proprietor of Euboea, who has been raised by the Porte to the Pashalic of Égripo, and entrusted with the con

duct of the war on that side of Greece. He was met at Marathon in the middle of July by the Greeks under Goura, where he received such a check as, combined with the ill success of the Seraskier on the side of Locris, has been sufficient to confine his exertions to Boeotia. The latter made an attempt after his retreat from Doris to enter Boeotia to the support of Omér, but met with such opposition in the passes of Mount Cnemis, that he soon gave up the attempt, which was quickly followed by the retreat of the Turks in Boeotia behind the walls of Egripo.

The naval efforts of the Ottoman government have been of a much more formidable character, and the result has been proportionably more glorious to the Greeks, as they have had to oppose all the Musulman powers of the Mediterranean, whose united efforts, if we except the destruction of the two little islands of Kaso and Psará, have ended in complete failure.

Housref, the Capitan Pasha, after having landed

reinforcements in Euboea, after having made a passing attempt to frighten the islands of Skópelo and Skiútho into submission, and taken on board a body of Albanians at Thessalonica, assembled at Mytilini his armament, amounting to about 150 sail. It is evident that nothing but a combination of the most determined valour, with the greatest prudence and good fortune, could enable so small a community as that of Psará to resist such an overwhelming force. These requisites were in several respects deficient. On the morning of the 3d July, a landing was made at the back of the island while the fleet fired on the town. The measure was completely successful; the Turks* quickly drove the enemy's out-posts before them, and made their appearance on the heights above the town, when the greater part of the Psarians retreated in confusion to their ships and put to sea, in which operation great numbers of them were lost. The town was then taken, and the greater part of the remaining population was massacred. The garrison of one of the fortified posts destroyed both themselves and the assail

* A great part of these were Albanians. It was by a body of Musulman Albanians also that Casus was taken in the middle of June.