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.