First of all I made a light meal for one fourth of my money, and, having been informed that I had to follow the Salerno road, I went towards Portici where I arrived in an hour and a half.  I already felt rather fatigued; my legs, if not my head, took me to an inn, where I ordered a room and some supper.  I was served in good style, my appetite was excellent, and I passed a quiet night in a comfortable bed.  In the morning I told the inn-keeper that I would return for my dinner, and I went out to visit the royal palace.  As I passed through the gate, I was met by a man of prepossessing appearance, dressed in the eastern fashion, who offered to shew me all over the palace, saying that I would thus save my money.  I was in a position to accept any offer; I thanked him for his kindness.

Happening during the conversation to state that I was a Venetian, he told me that he was my subject, since he came from Zante.  I acknowledged his polite compliment with a reverence.

“I have,” he said, “some very excellent muscatel wine ’grown in the East, which I could sell you cheap.”

“I might buy some, but I warn you I am a good judge.”

“So much the better.  Which do you prefer?”

“The Cerigo wine.”

“You are right.  I have some rare Cerigo muscatel, and we can taste it if you have no objection to dine with me.”

“None whatever.”

“I can likewise give you the wines of Samos and Cephalonia.  I have also a quantity of minerals, plenty of vitriol, cinnabar, antimony, and one hundred quintals of mercury.”

“Are all these goods here?”

“No, they are in Naples.  Here I have only the muscatel wine and the mercury.”

It is quite naturally and without any intention to deceive, that a young man accustomed to poverty, and ashamed of it when he speaks to a rich stranger, boasts of his means—­of his fortune.  As I was talking with my new acquaintance, I recollected an amalgam of mercury with lead and bismuth, by which the mercury increases one-fourth in weight.  I said nothing, but I bethought myself that if the mystery should be unknown to the Greek I might profit by it.  I felt that some cunning was necessary, and that he would not care for my secret if I proposed to sell it to him without preparing the way.  The best plan was to astonish my man with the miracle of the augmentation of the mercury, treat it as a jest, and see what his intentions would be.  Cheating is a crime, but honest cunning may be considered as a species of prudence.  True, it is a quality which is near akin to roguery; but that cannot be helped, and the man who, in time of need, does not know how to exercise his cunning nobly is a fool.  The Greeks call this sort of wisdom Cerdaleophyon from the word cerdo; fox, and it might be translated by foxdom if there were such a word in English.

After we had visited the palace we returned to the inn, and the Greek took me to his room, in which he ordered the table to be laid for two.  In the next room I saw several large vessels of muscatel wine and four flagons of mercury, each containing about ten pounds.