Erguebzed, whose weight of years began to make him feel the weight of his crown, tired with holding the reins of the empire, frighted at the disturbances which threatened it, full of confidence in the superior qualifications of Mangogul, and urged by sentiments of religion, sure prognostics of the approaching death or imbecility of the great, descended from the throne, to seat his son thereon: and this good prince thought he was under an obligation of expiating, by a retirement, the crimes of the most just administration, of which there is any account in the annals of Congo. Thus it was, that in the year of the world 15,000,000,032,000,021, of the empire of Congo 390,000,070,003, began the reign of Mangogul, the 1,234,500 of his race in a direct line. Frequent conferences with his ministers, wars carried on, and the management of affairs, taught him in a very short time what remained for him to know at getting out of the hands of his pedagogues; and that was somewhat. However, in less than ten years Mangogul acquired the reputation of a great man. He gained battles, stormed towns, enlarged his empire, quieted his provinces, repaired the disorder of his finances, restored arts and sciences, raised edifices, immortalized himself by useful establishments, strengthened and corrected the legislative power, even founded academies; and, what his university could never comprehend, he executed all these great things, without knowing one word of Latin. Mangogul was not less amiable in his Seraglio than great on the throne. He did not take it into his head to regulate his conduct by the ridiculous customs of his country. He broke the gates of the palaces inhabited by his women; he drove out those injurious guards of their virtue; he prudently confided in themselves for their fidelity: the entrance into their appartments was as free for men as into those of the canonesses of Flanders; and doubtless their behaviour as decent. Oh! how good a Sultan he was! There never was his equal, but in some French romance. He was mild, affable, chearful, gallant, of a charming figure, a lover of pleasures, cut out for them, and contained more wit and sense in his head, than had been in those of all his predecessors put together. 'Tis easy to judge that, with such uncommon merit, a number of the sex aspired to make him their conquest: Some few succeeded. Those who miss'd his heart, endeavour'd to console themselves with the grandees of the court. Young Mirzoza was of the number of the former. I shall not amuse myself with detailing the qualities and charms of Mirzoza: the work would be without end, and I am resolved that this history shall have one. CHAP. III. _Which may be regarded as the first of this history._