The existence of such a city as Ioannina seems, till very lately, to have been almost unknown, and yet, I should suppose it, after Salonica and Adrianople, to be the most considerable place in European Turkey. It has never been my good fortune to meet with a notice of it in any book of an early date, except once in the ponderous history of Knolles, who, with an accuracy usual in such a writer, tells how the Sultan Bajazet the First, took the city of Ioannina in Aetolia. Poukeville somewhere discovered, that it was founded by Michael Lucas Sebastocrator, and by the despot Thomas, and conquered by Amurath Bey, general to Sultan Amurath the Second, in 1424. This account I am unable to confirm, or to contradict, and shall therefore speak only of its present state.
[…] In its utmost length it may be perhaps two miles and a half; and in breadth, though in some places it is much narrower, nearly a mile. Immediately near the lake it stands on a flat, but the north and north-western parts of it are built on slopes of rising and uneven ground. A triangular peninsula (of which mention has before been made) juts into the lake, and contains the residence of the Pasha, being defended by a fortification and a tower at each angle. The entrance to this fortress is over a drawbridge. There is one street which runs nearly the whole length of the town, and another that cuts it at right angles, extending to the fortress. These are the principal streets.
