not dare to venture into the narrow extremity of the Argolic gulf, either in proceeding to Patræ or in returning from thence, although in the former instance the success of their army, which was then entering the Moréa, depended upon it, and in the latter case the saving of the fortress of Nauplia from capture.

3. A third cause which prevented the Turks from executing a combination of operations in this campaign, was the impossibility of maintaining a constant communication between Eastern and Western Greece, through the mountain-barrier which separates them. The most frequented passage is that which takes its name from the modern town of Métzovo. It crosses a central ridge of Pindus, on one side of which are the fountains of the Arachthus, flowing into the Ambracic gulf, and on the other those of the Peneus, which, after traversing the Thessalian plains, flow through the pass of Tempe into the gulf of Thessalonica. This road, in crossing the mountain from west to east, quits the Molossic plain near Ioannina, and on the opposite side of Pindus descends upon the site of Æginium, now occupied by the town of Staghi, or Kalabáka, situated on the edge of

the plain of Upper Thessaly, which formerly contained Tricca, Gomphi, and some other large cities. Although the easiest of all the passes, which communicate between Eastern and Western Greece, this route presents great resources for defence, and although free from danger as long as the castle of Ioannina and the person of Aly were the main objects of the Porte, it was frequently interrupted by the Armatolí from the country of the ancient Ethices, Athamanes, and other rude tribes of Epirus and Mount Pindus, after the war had become more general, and the insurrection of the Greeks had assumed a consistency. The passes lying farther south, which lead from the plain of Upper Thessaly through Athamania, into the Ambraciotis, or through Dolopia and the Ætolian mountains into the plains bordering upon the lower part of the Achelous, were still less practicable. In the course of the summer, a large body of Turkish cavalry was severely punished for their rash attempt to penetrate in the former direction to Arta, through the defiles leading from the site of Gomphi. The Turks were met by a body of Armatolí at the bridge of Koráki, on the Achelous, and were so completely defeated, that

it was with difficulty that a small part of them effected a retreat into the Thessalian plain.*

Thus, by the effect of these several causes, the main body of the Ottoman army assembled in the plain of Larissa, was left to its own unassisted exertions in its attack upon the Peloponnesus by the way of the Isthmus.

It was towards the end of May, 1822, that Khurshid Pasha, having failed in some attempts on Suli, and having finally resigned the conduct of the war in Western Greece into the hands of the Albanian Omér, now Pasha of Ioannina, joined the army at Larissa in Thessaly. His forces were principally collected from Rumili. There were about thirty thousand troops of the Porte, more than a third of whom were cavalry; and there were ten or twelve thousand horse of the Ayans, or great feudatories of Rumili, besides the personal guards of the respective pashas.†

*In the year B.C. 189, Philip, son of Demetrius, King of Macedonia, followed the same route in his expedition against Amynander, King of the Athamanes: he met with equal difficulties, and the result was exactly similar. See Livy, 1. xxxviii.

c. 2.

It is so extremely difficult to arrive at numerical accuracy in Turkey that we have seldom ventured to state the numbers

The month of June had entirely elapsed before the preparations for advancing beyond the Spercheius were considered by Khurshid as complete.

No sooner had he given the order for advancing, than the cavalry which formed the largest, or at least by far the most efficient, part of his army, leaving the artillery and infantry far behind, crossed the ridges of Othrys and Eta without opposition. The former was hardly defensible, as the important points of Pharsalus, Thaumaci and Lamia were in the hands of the Turks; but it was expected that Thermopyla and the passes of Mounts Callidromus and Cnemis, which were then occupied by Odhysséfs (Ulysses) son of Andrisko, a native of the neighbouring Doris, who had been captain of the Armatolí of all this part of the country under Aly Pasha, and who had so successfully opposed a large army of Turks at the same spot in the preceding year, would have presented a vigorous resistance. Whether the inactivity of Od

on either side in this war. The present estimate rests on the authority of a physician in the service of Khurshid, who was present when the Pasha stationed himself with the other Turkish leaders for three days on the side of the bridge of the Spercheius, near Thermopyla, while the army defiled over the bridge.

hysséfs on this occasion arose from a spirit of opposition to the central government, with which he had had some recent disagreement, or whether he calculated, that by allowing the enemy to spread over a larger tract of country, the Greeks would have it in their power to intercept his communications, and to harass him in detail with better effect, for which object the nature of the country and other circumstances were so admirably adapted, is perhaps known only to Odhysséfs himself. His courage and ability had hitherto been eminently useful to the cause of his country. He soon afterwards opposed Khurshid himself at the head of the reserve of the Turkish army with success; he has since repeatedly shown how formidable a barrier to the South of Greece, the Etæan passes are in his hands and whatever may have been his motives upon this occasion, the consequences of his conduct, although at first alarming, were ultimately most beneficial to the Greeks.

The Turkish army having crossed Phocis and Boeotia, plundering, burning, and murdering, while they published the amnesty of the Porte, arrived at Corinth, without having met with any resistance in the mountainous barriers of the