Congo had been disturbed by bloody wars in the reigns of Kanaglou and Erguebzed; and those two monarchs had immortalized themselves by the conquests they had made over their neighbours. The emperors of Abex and Angola look’d on the youth of Mangogul and the beginning of his reign, as favourable conjunctures to recover the provinces that had been taken from them. Wherefore they declared war against Congo, and attacked it on every side. Mangogul had the best council in all Africa: and old Sambuco and the Emir Mirzala, who were train’d up in the former wars, were placed at the head of the troops, gain’d victories on victories, and formed generals capable of succeeding them; an advantage of greater importance than even their successes.

Thanks to the activity of the council, and the good conduct of the generals, the enemy, who thought themselves sure of overcoming the empire, did not advance as far as the frontiers, made a poor defence of their own, and saw their fortified towns and provinces ravaged. But, such constant and glorious successes notwithstanding, Congo grew weaker by aggrandizing itself: the frequent raising of troops unpeopled the towns and country: and the treasury was exhausted.

The sieges and battles had cost a vast number of lives: the grand Vizier, very lavish of the blood of the soldiery, was accused of having hazarded battles that tended to nothing. Every family was in mourning: not one, but wept a father, a brother, or a friend. The number of officers slain was prodigious; and could be compared to naught but their wives, who solicited pensions. The closets of the ministers were beset with them. They pestered the Sultan himself with petitions, in which the merit and services of the deceased, the grief of their widows, the dismal condition of their children, and other moving motives were not forgotten. Nothing seemed more equitable than their requests: but on what fund to ground pensions which amounted to millions?

The ministers, after having exhausted speeches, and sometimes peevishness and rough language, were obliged to deliberate on the means of bringing this affair to a final issue: but they had an excellent reason for concluding nothing: there was not a penny left.

Mangogul, tired with the false reasonings of his ministers and the lamentations of the widows, hit upon the expedient, which his ministry had been so long hunting after. “Gentlemen,” said he to his council, “I am of opinion that, before any pensions are granted, it would be proper to examine if they are lawfully due.”

“This examination,” answered the great Seneschal, “will be immense, and of prodigious discussion. Yet how to resist the clamors and persecution of these women, by whom you, sir, are particularly teased?”

“It will not be as difficult a talk as you imagine, Mr. Seneschal,” replied the Sultan; “and I promise you that by tomorrow noon the whole affair shall be terminated, by the laws of the strictest equity. Do you only bring them to my audience chamber by nine in the morning.”

The council broke up, the Seneschal went into his office, pondered profoundly, and drew up the following proclamation; which in three hours time was printed, published by sound of trumpet, and fixed up at all the most public places of Banza.

By the Sultan’s most excellent majesty, and my lord the grand Seneschal,

We Gander-beak, grand Seneschal of Congo, vizier of the first bench, trainbearer to the great Manimonbanda, chief and superintendant of the sweepers of the divan, give notice, that tomorrow morning at nine of the clock, the magnanimous Sultan will give audience to the widows of the officers slain in his service, in order to decree, on sight of their pretensions, what to him shall seem meet. Given at our office the twelfth of the moon of Regeb, in the year 147,200,000,009.

All the distressed women of Congo, and a great number of them there was, did not fail to read the proclamation, or to send their footmen to read it; and less still to be at the appointed hour, in the lobby of the audience chamber. “In order to avoid a crowd, let no more enter,” said the Sultan, “than six of these ladies at once. When we have heard them, let them pass through the back door, which leads to the outward courts. You, gentlemen, be attentive, and pronounce on their demands.”

This said, he made a signal to the first gentleman usher of the audiences; and the six, who happen’d to be next the door, were introduced. They entered in long mourning robes, and made low reverences to his highness. Mangogul addressed the youngest and handsomest of them, whose name was Ifec. “Madam,” said he, “how long is it since you have lost your husband?”

“Three months,” answered Ifec weeping. “He was lieutenant general in your highness’s service. He was kill’d in the last battle, and six children are the only legacy he left me⁠—”

“He left you?” interrupted a voice, which, though issuing from Ifec, was not exactly in the same tone with hers. “Madam knows better than she says. They were all begun and finished by a young Bramin, who daily came to comfort her, while my master was in the field.”

’Tis easy to guess, whence proceeded the indiscreet voice, which pronounced this answer. Poor Ifec, being put out of countenance, grew pale, trembled, fainted. “Madam is subject to the vapors,” said Mangogul with an air of tranquillity: “let her be carried into an apartment of the Seraglio, and be taken care of.” Then immediately addressing Phenice: “Madam,” said he, “was not your husband a Pacha?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Phenice in a trembling voice. “And how have you lost him?”

“Sir, he died in his bed, quite exhausted with the fatigues of the last campaign⁠—”

“With the fatigues of the last campaign,” replied Phenice’s Toy. “Go, madam, your husband brought a firm and vigorous state of health from the camp; and he would still enjoy it, had not two or three scoundrel players⁠—you understand me, take care of yourself.”

“Write,” says the Sultan, “that Phenice demands a pension, for the good services, which she has rendered to the state and her husband.”

A third was interrogated on her husband’s age and name, who was said to have died in the army of the smallpox. “Of the small pox,” said the Toy, “a fine story indeed: say, madam, of two good strokes of a scimitar which he received from the Sangiac Cavaglio, because he took it ill, that his eldest son was said to be as like the Sangiac, as one egg is to another: and madam knows as well as I,” added the Toy, “that a likeness was never better grounded.”

The fourth was going to speak without being interrogated by Mangogul, when her Toy was heard to cry out from the lower regions, that these ten years part, which the war had lasted, she had made pretty good use of her time; that two pages and a huge scoundrel of a footman had supplied her husband’s place; and that without doubt she designed the pension, which she was solliciting, for keeping an actor of the comic opera.

A fifth stepped forward with intrepidity, and with an air of confidence demanded the reward of her late husband’s services, who was an aga of the Janissaries, and lost his life under the walls of Matatras. The Sultan turn’d his ring on her, but to no purpose. Her Toy was mute. “I must own,” says the African author, who had seen her, “that she was so ugly, that the bystanders would be astonished, if her Toy had anything to say.”

Mangogul was got to the sixth, and here are the express words of her Toy. “Truly, it well becomes madam,” meaning her, whose Toy was obstinately silent, “to solicit pensions, while she lives upon the poule, keeps a brelan table which brings her in three thousand sequins a year, makes private suppers at the expense of the gamesters, and received six hundred sequins from Osman, to draw me to one of these suppers, where the treacherous Osman⁠—”

“Due regard shall be paid to your petitions, ladies,” said the Sultan: “for the present ye may withdraw.” Then directing his words to his counsellors, he ask’d them, if it did not seem ridiculous to them to grant pensions to a herd of little bastards of Bramins and others, and to women whose employment it was to dishonor brave men, who had enter’d into his service in quest of glory, at the expense of their lives.

The Seneschal stood up, answered, declaimed, resumed, and gave his opinion obscurely as usual. While he was yet speaking, Ifec recovered from her fit, quite enraged at her adventure; and, as she expected no pension for herself, and would run distracted, if any other obtain’d one, which would have happened in all likelihood, she went directly into the antechamber, and whispered to two or three of her female friends, that they were summoned thither purely to hear their Toys chatter; that she herself heard one deliver horrid things in the audience chamber; that she would not name it for the world; but that they must be fools, to expose themselves to the same danger.

This advice passed from hand to hand, and dispersed the crowd of widows. When the gentleman usher opened the door to let in a second parcel, not one was there. “Well, Seneschal, will you believe me another time?” said Mangogul informed of the desertion, to the good man, clapping him on the shoulder. “I promised to rid you of these female weepers, and I have done it. Yet they were very assiduous in making court to you, notwithstanding your fourscore and fifteen years of age. But whatever pretensions you may possibly have: for I am not ignorant of the facility you had to form pretensions on these ladies, I fancy you are obliged to me for their retreat. They gave you more embarras than pleasure.”

The African author informs us, that the remembrance of this trial is kept up in Congo; and for that reason it is, that the government is so sparing of granting pensions: but this was not the only good effect of Cucufa’s ring, as we shall see in the following chapter.