plore the pass,
set the men to work at the worst places, and, thanks to the secrecy
observed by the peasantry, soon made the path to the summit practicable
for cavalry and light guns. The Prince disguised himself as a Bulgarian
shepherd to examine the southern outlet; and, on his bringing a
favourable report, 11,000 men of Gurko's command began to thread the
intricacies of the defile.

Thanks to good food, stout hearts, jokes, and songs, they managed to get
the guns up the worst places. Then began the perils of the descent. But
the Turks knew nothing of their effort, else it might have ended far
otherwise. At the southern end 300 Turkish regulars were peacefully
smoking their pipes and cooking their food when the Cossack and Rifles
in the vanguard burst upon them, drove them headlong, and seized the
village of Khainkoi. A pass over the Balkans had been secured at the
cost of two men killed and three wounded. Gurko was almost justified in
sending to the Grand Duke Nicholas the proud vaunt that none but Russian
soldiers could have brought field artillery over such a pass, and in the
short space of three days (July 11-14)[140].

[Footnote 140: _General Gurko's Advance Guard In 1877_, by Colonel
Epauchin, translated by H. Havelock (The Wolseley Series, 1900), ch.
ii.; _The Daily News War Correspondence_ (1877), pp. 263-270.]

After bringing his column of 11,000 men through the pass, Gurko drove
off four Turkish battalions sent against him from the Shipka Pass and
Kazanlik. Next he sent out bands of Cossacks to spread terror
southwards, and delude the Turks into the belief that he meant to strike
at the important towns, Jeni Zagra and Eski Zagra, on the road to
Adrianople. Having thus caused them to loosen their grip on Kazanlik and
the Shipka, he wheeled his main force to the westward (leaving 3500 men
to hold the exit of the Khainkoi), and drove the Turks successively from
positions in front of the town, from the town itself, and then from the
village of Shipka. Above that place towered the mighty wall of the
Balkans, lessened somewhat at the pass itself, but presenting even there
a seemingly impregnable position.

Gurko, however, relied on the discouragement of the Turkish garrison
after the defeats of their comrades, and at seeing their positions
turned on the south while they were also threatened on the north. For
another Russian column had advanced from Tirnova up the more gradual
northern slopes of the Balkans, an