It was here (he notes) that I first assumed European dress and with it the name of Count Cagliostro; nor was it a small matter of surprise to me to see Althotas appear in a clerical dress with the insignia of the Order of Malta. The Grand Master Pinto was apparently acquainted with Cagliostro’s history. He often spoke to him, he says, of the Cherif, but always refused to be “drawn” on the subject of his real origin and birth. He treated him, however, with every consideration and endeavoured to induce him to “take the cross,” promising him a great career and rapid preferment if he would consent to do so. Cagliostro’s love of travelling and of the study of medicine drew him in another direction, and on the death of his guardian, Althotas, which occurred shortly after, he left Malta for ever. After visiting Sicily and the Greek Archipelago in company with the Chevalier d’Aquino he proceeded thence to Naples, where he took leave of his companion. Provided with a letter of credit on the banking house of Signor Bellone he left Naples for Rome, where his destiny awaited him in the shape of Seraphina Feliciani, who shortly after became his wife, and to whom he showed throughout his married life a most unfailing devotion.[14] Cagliostro states that he was then (anno 1770) in his twenty-second year, and he appears to have continued to pursue that nomadic life which was so dear to him, travelling from town to town on the Continent of Europe till he at length emerges into the light of day in the city of London, in the month of July 1776, in furnished apartments in Whitcombe Street, Leicester Fields. London seems always to have been an unfortunate place for Cagliostro, and here he was destined, on the first of many occasions, to become the victim of his own too trustful and generous disposition and to be fleeced of the greater part of his possessions by a nest of rogues, who took advantage of a foreigner entirely ignorant of London. Eventually he was rescued from this gang of knaves by a good Samaritan in the shape of a certain O’Reilly. Now O’Reilly was a prominent member of the Esperance Lodge of Freemasons, and here we first find Cagliostro brought into contact with that celebrated secret society, his connection with which was destined to play so all-important a part in the subsequent years of his life. O’Reilly, it appears, was the proprietor of the _King’s Head_, in Gerard Street, where the Esperance Lodge assembled, and it was only natural that one so fascinated with the occult as Cagliostro should be readily persuaded by his benefactor and rescuer to become initiated into the order of Freemasons. It is not necessary here to follow in detail the sordid intrigues of which, during his sojourn in England, he was made the victim. He was, however, glad eventually to escape from the country, with “no more than £50 and some jewels” in his possession, having lost in all, through fraud and consequent legal proceedings, some 3000