I may remark that Constantinople is very subject to earthquakes, and I remember that once, a little after midnight, our lodging began to shake so violently that we thought the house would fall. I had been sound asleep, but when it woke me and I could see by my night-light books and cups tumbling about, laths and stones falling from the wall, and the whole room shaking violently, for a moment I was dumbfoundered and knew not what to make of it. At last, when it occurred to me that it was an earthquake, I jumped up and ran out, for fear the house should tumble in upon me. The same earthquake continued for some days, though the shocks were not so violent. All through the city, and especially in our lodging and in St. Sophia, even where the walls are most solid, may be seen huge cracks caused by settlements from earthquakes. I stayed at Adrianople about three months, and then, after concluding a seven months’ armistice, I was taken back to Constantinople in March. As I was tired of being confined in the same lodging, I had recourse to the cavasse who acted as my keeper (for among the various duties which, as I have already told you, are assigned to men of this profession amongst the Turks, is the custody of ambassadors), and asked him to allow me, like other ambassadors, to hire a house with a little bit of garden or pleasure-ground, at my own expense. The cavasse made no objection, as it would be a saving for his master of 400 gold ducats a year if I took a house for myself, this being the price which the Sultan paid for my present lodgings; so I hired a house, or rather block of buildings, with some land about it, where I intended to lay out a garden, hoping by this means to divert my mind from the cares and anxieties of my position. When, however, my cavasse found it was impossible to watch me in a house, which was furnished with several means of egress and lay in its own ample grounds, as strictly as in a caravanserai (a word with which I think my former letters have made you familiar), where all the windows were closely barred, and to which there was only one entrance, he changed his mind, and induced the Pashas, who had now returned from Adrianople, to shut me up once more within the walls of our old lodging. Thankful, indeed, was I that I did not get worse treatment, for some of the Pashas held that, now that I was alone, it was a needless extravagance to give me such a roomy lodging. The majority, however, of the council were more considerate, and I was allowed to return to my old prison-house.