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A Russian diplomatist, Prince Tserteleff, who was charged to collect information about the passes, found that the Khainkoi enjoyed an evil reputation. "Ill luck awaits him who crosses the Khainkoi Pass," so ran the local proverb.
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.
Finally, Suleiman Pasha, in his pride at driving Gurko through the Khainkoi Pass, wasted time on the southern side, first by harrying the wretched Bulgarians, and then by hurling his brave troops repeatedly against the now almost impregnable position on the Shipka Pass.
Even so they had not enough men at hand to defend all the passes of the mountain chain that formed their chief line of defence. They left one of them practically undefended; this was the Khainkoi Pass, having an elevation of 3700 feet above the sea.
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