to
Constantinople, with considerable levies of Bosnians and Albanians, of
which they knew he could dispose, and with the six regiments of infantry
and cavalry that belonged to them.

In the meantime the indefatigable Hussein Pasha had succeeded in
re-organising an army with about 40,000 regulars of the reserve; it
was echeloned between the capital and Koniah, reinforced by the troops
brought by the Grand Vizier; it was sufficiently numerous to have
prevented Ibrahim's further advance; but there was neither skill in
the general nor ardour among the troops; the councils of the European
instructors were, as usual, disregarded, while the Egyptian army, on
the contrary, was almost exclusively under the direction of European
officers. A single piece of artillery would have sufficed to defend the
passage of the Taurus, and yet when Ibrahim appeared on its northern
declivity he had to encounter but a few irregulars, of whom he soon gave
a good account. He then fixed his camp on the plain of Erekli, at one
hundred and sixty days' march of a camel from Constantinople, and then
advanced upon Koniah.

Reuff Pasha, who had provisionally assumed the command of the Turkish
army until the arrival of Red-chid Pasha, prudently fell back upon Acken
at the approach of the Egyptians. But forgetting the disastrous day of
Koulaktche, the Grand Vizier merely assumed the offensive instead of
taking up a position in the mountains; and, allowing the unusual rigour
of the season to thin the ranks of the enemy, he precipitately advanced.
The cold was so excessive, the weather so dreadful, and the roads
rendered so impassable by the snow, that only a small portion of the
artillery and ammunition could follow the movement, so that they found
themselves, as at Horns, without provisions in the presence of the
enemy.

Some distance from Koniah, Redchid Pasha sent forward his selector at
the head of a body of irregulars, with orders to advance across the
mountains up the village of Lile, which was occupied by a strong
detachment of Arabs, while the Grand Vizier on his side with the grand
army, was to pursue the route of the plain. The attack was to have been
simultaneous, but unfortunately the selector arrived too soon on the
scene of action, and was totally defeated. Undaunted by this check,
the Grand Vizier continued his advance, and did not halt till he was in
presence of the enemy, whom he found strongly entrenched, and prepared
to give him a war