It was in the town of Messina that Balsamo first met with the mysterious alchemist Altotas, whom in his fabulous autobiography he represented as the oriental tutor of his infancy. As he was promenading one day near the jetty at the extremity of the port, he encountered an individual singularly habited, and possessed of a most remarkable countenance. This person, aged apparently about fifty years, seemed to be an Armenian, though, according to other accounts, he was a Spaniard or Greek. He wore a species of caftan, a silk bonnet, and the extremities of his breeches were concealed in a pair of wide boots. In his left hand he held a parasol, and in his right the end of a cord, to which was attached a graceful Albanian greyhound. Whether from curiosity or by presentiment, Cagliostro saluted this grotesque being, who bowed slightly, but with satisfied dignity. “You do not reside in Messina, signor?” he said in Sicilian, but with a marked foreign accent. Cagliostro replied that he was tarrying for a few days, and they began to converse on the beauty of the town and on its advantageous situation, a kind of oriental imagery individualising the eloquence of the stranger, whose remarks were, moreover, adroitly adorned with a few appropriate compliments. He eluded inquiries as to his own identity, but offered to unveil the past of the Count Cagliostro, and to reveal what was actually passing in his mind at that moment. When Cagliostro hinted at sorcery, the Armenian smiled somewhat scornfully, and dilated on the ignorance of a nation which confused science with witchcraft, and prepared faggots for discoverers. His hearer, much interested, ventured to ask the address of the illustrious stranger, who graciously invited him to call. They walked past the cathedral and halted in a small quadrilateral street shaded by sycamores, and having a charming fountain in the centre. “Signor,” said the stranger, “there is the house I inhabit. I receive no one; but as you are a traveller, as you are young and courteous, as, moreover, you are animated by a noble passion for the sciences, I permit you to visit me. I shall be visible to you to-morrow a little before midnight. You will rap twice on the hammer”--he pointed as he spoke to the door of a low-storied house--“then three times more slowly, and you will be admitted. Adieu! Hasten at once to your inn. A Piedmontese is trying to possess himself of the seven and thirty ounces of gold that are secured in your valise, and which is itself shut up in a press, the key of which is in your pocket at this moment. Your servant, signor!” and he departed rapidly. Cagliostro, returning in all haste, discovered the thief in the act, and, as a lawful and righteously indignant proprietor, he forthwith delivered him to justice.