As for drink--a mighty question!--at home few Englishmen could afford to intoxicate themselves and their guests properly with anything less coarse than beer; in the Levant the choicest wines were common beverages; and those Franks whose palates craved greater variety supplemented their cellars with the products of the West. Ambassadors were even privileged to import 7000 measures of wine a year duty-free. Sir John Finch, who loved the wines of Italy dearly, but could not consume in his own household more than 2000 measures, was thus able, by selling the surplus, to have his annual supply for nothing.[49] Things being so, Britons, on the whole, found life in Turkey tolerable enough, and in a place like Constantinople well worth living. To be sure, there were frequent earthquakes and fires, which always caused inconvenience, often grave trouble, sometimes severe suffering. But the most vexatious affliction of all--Turkish oppression--was least felt at Pera. In that suburb Europeans tasted a snatch of liberty not to be found elsewhere throughout the Ottoman Empire, except at Smyrna. There hats and wigs might show themselves abroad with little fear of being struck off the wearer’s head. In each other’s houses the merchants could indulge their sociable proclivities without let or hindrance. Those among them who had more room than they knew what to do with harboured paying guests, and every now and again there arrived from England a transient visitor whom the residents entertained with hospitable prodigality; for the English in the Levant had caught all the geniality of the Levantine climate, and prided themselves on nothing more than on their warmth towards strangers. When the summer heats and the Plague, which visited every Turkish town with devastating regularity, made Pera unendurable, the English “Nation” resorted to Belgrade--a well-wooded and well-watered, peaceful little village not more than ten miles distant, open to the fresh and wholesome breezes of the Black Sea. Here, in the company of other Franks, they could dine and dance on the grass near the rivulets and fountains as freely as in any country-place in Europe. Here the ladies also, who at Constantinople were obliged to efface themselves, more or less, in conformity to Oriental notions of decorum, joined in the amusements of the men. All this served to alleviate the pains of exile for ordinary Britons.