“Mr. Sidney Whitman, Correspondent of the _New York Herald_, left our city last Saturday for Elassona in order to follow the operations of the troops. The local authorities of Sorovitch have gracefully placed a military escort at the disposal of the American journalist, which will accompany him to the frontier. “Mr. Whitman is one of those rare correspondents of foreign newspapers who have appreciated without malevolence the attitude of the Imperial Ottoman Government in the various incidents which have happened of recent years. “We may be sure that again to-day he will keep the innumerable readers of the _New York Herald_ correctly informed as regards the imposing military forces of Turkey, the admirable discipline of her troops, their valour, their bravery, and their irreproachable conduct. The American paper has sent another correspondent to the Greek Camp, and a third one to Constantinople. It is always by telegraph that these gentlemen communicate with their paper. One can thus form an idea of the enormous expenditure which the _New York Herald_ incurs in order to justify its reputation as the best and most promptly informed journal.” We proceeded by rail to Karaferia, which left us about eighty miles to Elassona by road, and took the road to Sorovitch, where we spent the night as guests of a pasha and reached our destination in the evening of the next day. As we came nearer to Elassona we passed a large number of troops on the road, for they were all converging towards that point, not merely from Salonica, but also from the port of Katerina, where 1200 horses and mules were disembarked daily by army contractors. Many of the men we saw were cavalry, clad in the most fantastic style. Some of them rode mules, and, in addition to a belt full of cartridges round their waist and shoulders, carried a pickaxe, a knife, charcoal for lighting a fire, and a supply of flour, sugar, rice, barley, and beans. Their foot-covering was the so-called “Tcharik,” consisting of a piece of untanned leather tied with string to the ankle and leg. The villages we passed through offered next to no accommodation; swallows built their nests in the dilapidated tenements. In this truly desolate and wholly uncultivated country it was difficult to imagine it had ever formed part of the dominions of Philip and Alexander of Macedonia. But what its economic possibilities might become under reasonable conditions was brought home to us when our energetic interpreter provided a large glass bottle of excellent red wine, holding a full gallon, which, bottle and all, he had purchased in the village of Kossona for thirteen pence in English money!