526 JANIZARIES its ruin. When no longer able to defend the city, he set it on fire. (See ALI PASHA.) The mosques, the palaces, and the two academies for which Janina was celebrated, were all de- stroyed. Opposite the city is a small island with a fishing village and a church and monas- tery. The lake of Janina is about 6 m. in length, and almost 3 m. in its greatest breadth, bound- ed ST. E. by the Mitzikeli mountains (2,500 ft. high), and S. W. by a rocky mountain crowned with the ruins of an Epirote city, supposed to have been the ancient Dodona. The N. W. part of the lake is commonly called the lake of Lapsista, and the S. E. that of Janina. The middle resembles a marsh rather than a lake, and is traversed by two long channels which connect the two portions. The waters of both lakes are absorbed by subterranean channels; that which communicates with the river Ka- lama (the Thyamis of the ancient Greeks) is in the lake of Lapsista. The lake of Janina abounds with pike, perch, carp, tench, eels, and other fish. Immense numbers of wild fowl breed in the covert of the lofty reeds upon its shores. It has been proposed to drain the lake by boring a tunnel 6 m. long through a lime- stone mountain. JANIZARIES, a body of Turkish infantry now extinct. The name is derived from yenisJceri, or yeni and askari, " new troops." They were first assembled in 1329 by Sultan Orkhan, but were not regularly organized until 1362, when Amurath I., after conquering the southern Slavic kingdoms, claimed one fifth of the cap- tives, including the able-bodied youth, to be converted to Islamism and educated as sol- diers. This was done with extraordinary care, the recruits being distributed at first among the peasantry of Asia Minor, that they might become hardened by rural life and familiar with Mohammedanism. They manifested all the enthusiasm of proselytes; and as this spirit was warmly encouraged, and as privileges were granted them, they soon became a formidable means of defence. They were divided at first into 80, afterward into 162, and finally into 196 ortas, each numbering in Constantinople nominally 100 men, and elsewhere 200 or 300, in time of peace, but 500 in time of war. Be- sides the aga, or commander-in-chief of the whole body, six officers were attached to each orta, the chief being called the orta-lasM. The lowest officer was the cook, who also per- formed various other duties, and for whom the soldiers manifested great reverence. They never appeared without a wooden spoon in their turbans, and on extraordinary occasions always assembled around their soup kettles ; their revolts were proclaimed by reversing these kettles, and to lose one of them in bat- tle was looked upon as a disgrace equivalent to the loss of colors in other armies. Under Solyman the Magnificent they formed the best disciplined force in Europe. After his death, when the sultans ceased to lead their armies in person, the organization fell into decay. It was no longer recruited exclusively from young Christian prisoners of war, or from levies on the Slavic provinces, but from any persons who could obtain appointments in it by in- trigue, until finally it consisted in a great mea- sure of menials and vagabonds, many of whom Superior. loferior. Janizaries Officers. followed no military exercises and were per- mitted to engage in trade or mechanical and other occupations. But they still supplied something like an organization to the turbulent mob of the Turkish cities, and were long really formidable to society and government itself. They mutinied repeatedly against the sultans, and in some cases deposed them or put them to death. They frequently pillaged the cities which it was their duty to guard. In 1798 Selim III. attempted to form a better army by instituting the nizam-jadid or disciplined troops. This caused a revolt, the abdication and death of Selim (July 28, 1808), and terri- ble outrages in Constantinople (Nov. 14). Mah- moud II. was obliged on reaching the throne to pardon the, janizaries ; but, impressed with the danger of such troops, he quietly matured during several years a plan for ridding himself of them. Having gained over some of their officers and the Mohammedan priesthood, he resolved to exterminate them, and on May 29, 1826, published a decree ordering that 150 janizaries of every regiment should be formed into a regularly disciplined militia. This, as was expected, led to a revolt (June 15, 1826), the janizaries committing horrible excesses. The next day they assembled and reversed their kettles. But the mufti displaying the sacred standard of Mohammed, all the better class of the population joined the regular troops. Ar- tillery had been long prepared in anticipation of this event, and great numbers of galiongis
