That country was until very recently a _terra incognita_ to Europeans; the ancients mention very few towns in it, and their descriptions are unsatisfactory. Before the year 1798, when the Ionian islands came into the hands of the French, no European traveller had ever visited the interior of Epirus. It was, therefore, an unknown country, the interior was a complete blank in geographical maps, and the rivers were drawn at random. D’Anville complains of the total want of information, and with his slender means he accomplished all that could be accomplished, but he himself says, that he drew his map of the country with great uncertainty. He did not know, e.g., the site of the lake of Janina, and imagined that it was somewhere near the coast. The geography of Melitios, archbishop of Janina, contains a very respectable description of Epirus; it was written at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and from it the excellent Barbié du Bocage made the first comparatively correct map of Epirus, which accompanies Barthélemy’s _Voyage du jeune Anacharsis_. Afterwards the country was much visited by French and English officers, and Vaudoncourt and the English consul[88] ... have immensely increased our knowledge of the country, so that now it is perfectly well known, and the obscurity in which many of the statements of the ancients were involved is now sufficiently removed; our present maps of Epirus, too, are quite satisfactory. The first map of this kind was one of the Turkish empire by a modern Greek, which was published at Trieste; it was made for Greeks, and in the modern Greek language; I received it with great pleasure, and Epirus appeared in it in quite a new light. The exploits of the Suliots have made Epirus hallowed ground to every one who is not devoid of human feeling and sympathy. Their deeds of valour described in the history of Major Perrevos, and in the excellent abridgment of Fauriel, a Frenchman, surpass everything that is related in epic poetry, and transfer us from our artificial age, so thoroughly devoid of character, into an age of heroes. They are among the most remarkable people of our time: their sufferings have stirred up our keenest sympathy; to them we are indebted for the delight of having witnessed a heroic age, while our own life has become so uniformly European, that everything has assumed a general and vague character; the Suliots will have an interest for all succeeding ages. The Epirots, on the testimony of Thucydides, were formerly considered as barbarians, with the exception of Pyrrhus, and I myself have looked upon them in the same light; but they are now dear to us, and we honour them. For this reason, I shall here enter more into detail than elsewhere, and perhaps more than the relative importance of the country requires.