SULI, a mountainous district of Southern Albania, which extends in length about 30 miles from north to south, and about 20 miles in breadth, and is separated to the south-west from the coast of the Adriatic by a strip of lowland in which is Port Fanari, the ancient Elms, at the mouth of the Acheron. On the south-east highland of Soli is bounded by the plain of Arta, which extends to the gulf of the same name. Towards tho north Suli borders on the district of Paramithia and on that of Janina towards the north-east. The river Glyky, the ancient Acheron, coming from the north, flows along a deep valley which intersects the highlands of Suli, and after being joined by several streams enters the Adriatic at Port Failed. The district of Suli is part of the ancient Thesprotia, one of the three great divisions of Epirns. It contains eighteen villages or hamlets, of which ten or eleven are In the highland; and the rest in the plain. The principal village, called Mega Suli, lies on a hill near the left bank of the Acheron. The whole population of Soli, at the time of , the war with Ali Pasha, did not amount to more than 12,000, divided into about thirty tribes or clans, each consisting of several families related or allied to one another. The head of each clan was styled
captain, and led his contingent in war, subject to a supreme corn mander, styled Polemarch, who was chosen by votes for the time.
In May, 1801, All Pasha began a war of extermination against Suli, and at last succeeded in conquering that stubborn population. Many of the Suliotes fell in the struggle, others were murdered by Ali'a soldiers, many of the women threw themselves into the river rather than fall into the hands of the Turks; and the rest of the population, about 9000, contrived to reach Parga, whence they went to the Ionian Islands, then under the protection of Russia. [Rams.] A few, trusting to the premises of Veli Pasha, Ali's son, remained in their desolate villages. In the war for the independence of Greece, a body of Suliotes fought at Missolongi against the Turks, and they wero for a time in the pay of Lord Byron.