“Well, if I was Sultan,” cried a little Senator ruined by gaming, parted from his wife, and whose children had the worst of education, “if I was Sultan, I would make Congo a flourishing empire. I would be the terror of my enemies, and the darling of my subjects. Within six months I would reestablish the Police, the laws, the army and the navy in their full vigour. I would have a hundred ships of the line. Our heaths should soon be grub’d up, and our highways repair’d. I would abolish the taxes, or at least reduce them to one half. As for pensions, gentlemen of sublime wit, by my faith, ye should but just taste them with the tip of your tongues. Good officers, Pongo Sabiam, good officers, old soldiers, magistrates like us, who devote our labours and night studies to dealing out justice to the people; these are the men on whom I would shed my bounty.”
“Gentlemen,” said an old toothless politician, with greasy flat hair, a coat worn out at elbows, and ragged ruffles, “have ye quite forgot our great emperor Abdelmalek, of the Dynasty of the Abyssinians, who reigned two thousand three hundred and eighty five years ago? Have ye forgot how he caused two astronomers to be impaled, for an error of three minutes in their prediction of an eclipse; and his first physician and surgeon to be dissected alive, for having ordered him a dose of manna at an improper time?”
“Moreover I ask you,” continued another, “what are those idle Bramins good for, that vermin who suck our blood, and grow fat on it. Would not their immense overflowing riches better become honest folks like us.”
From another quarter was heard: “Forty years ago, were the new cookery and the liquors of Lorraine so much as known? Our rulers are plung’d deep into luxury, which threatens approaching destruction to the empire, a necessary consequence of the contempt of the Pagodas and dissolution of morals. At the time when people eat but coarse meats, and drank but sherbet at Kanaglou’s table; what regard would be paid to the cut-paper ornaments, to Martin’s varnishes, and to Rameau’s music? The opera girls were not more cruel then than at present, and were to be had much cheaper. The prince, you see, spoils many good things. But if I was Sultan—”
“If thou wert Sultan,” answered in wrath an old officer, who had escaped the dangers of the battle of Fontenoy, and had lost an arm close to his prince in the fight of Laufelt; “thou wouldst commit greater impertinences than thou now dealst out. Eh, friend, thou can’st not govern thy tongue, and thou wouldst willingly rule an empire: thou hast not sense to manage thy family, and thou pretendst to guide a state. Respect the powers of the earth, and thank the Gods for having given thee birth in the empire, and in the reign of a prince, whose prudence instructs his ministers, and whose soldiery admire his valor; who has made himself dreaded by his enemies, and beloved by his people; and whose only fault is the lenity with which persons of thy stamp are treated under his government.”
XV
The Bramins
After the learned had spent themselves on the Toys, the Bramins took possession of them. Religion laid claim to their chitchat, as a subject that came within its jurisdiction, and its ministers pretended that the hand of Brama manifested itself in that work.
There was held a general assembly of Pontiffs, and a resolution was taken to employ the best pens to prove in form, that the thing was supernatural, and that, till their works could be published, it should be defended by way of theses in the schools, in private conversations, in the direction of consciences, and in public harangues.
Now, although they unanimously agreed that the thing was supernatural; yet as the people of Congo admitted two principles, and professed a sort of Manicheism, they were divided in opinion, to which of these two principles the chitchat of the Toys ought to be attributed.
Those who had seldom or never been out of their cells, and had turned over nothing but their books, ascribed the prodigy to Brama. “There is none but he,” said they, “that can interrupt the course of nature; and time will show, that in all this he has most profound views.”
Those on the contrary, who frequented the toilets, and were oftener surprised at bedsides than in their closets, fearing lest some indiscreet Toy or other might unveil their hypocrisy, laid their prattle to the charge of Cadabra, a mischief-making deity, and a sworn enemy to Brama and his servants. This latter system was exposed to terrible objections, and had not so direct a tendency towards the reformation of morals. Nay, its defenders did not impose on themselves about it. But the business was, to screen themselves: and in order to compass that, religion had not a single minister, who would not have sacrificed the Pagodas and their Altars a hundred times over.
Mangogul and Mirzoza assisted regularly at the religious service of Brama, and the whole empire was informed thereof by the newspapers. On a certain day appointed for celebrating one of the principal solemnities in the great Mosque, they were present. The Bramin, whose turn it was to explain the law, mounted the rostrum, pour’d forth a volley of affected phrases and fulsome compliments on the Sultan and his favorite; and made an eloquent peroration on the manner of sitting orthodoxly in company. He had already demonstrated the necessity thereof by numberless authorities, when being instantaneously seized with a fit of sacred enthusiasm, he spoke this declamation, which had the greater effect, as it came in quite unexpected.
“What do I hear in all assemblies? a confused murmur, an unheard noise strikes my ears. All things are turn’d topsy-turvy, and the faculty of speech, which the goodness of Brama had hitherto appropriated to the tongue, is
