The seven island provinces of Chalakanesia
The mongoose is a restless, questing, inquisitive beast. It is gallant to the point of recklessness, and misguided gallantry will often lead a small mongoose to attack a much larger dog. However, the true professional specialty of the mongoose is the conquest of snakes. There are very few snakes in Lexis (a pity, since snakemeat is very good to eat, and Heineman loved it dearly), but the more northerly of the Pearls are overrun with serpents, and, in the feudal period, the great Rikitus Tavitus instituted the first official Mongoose Squad on the island of Midas Makorum (though he was bitterly opposed in this by the shoemakers, who feared, with good reason, that the manufacture of snakeskin shoes would be thereby endangered).
Ever since then, the keeping of great Mongoose Squads has been a feature of Chalakanesian life, with the Seven States vying with each other to see which can produce the fiercest, most reckless pack of mongooses (an unfortunate competition which has led, on occasion, to hapless mongooses being cruelly pitted against such inappropriate opponents as the pig, the honey bear and the water buffalo).
'How is the mongoose?' said Heineman, not because he wanted to know, but because he thought it his presidential duty to show interest in the presidential Mongoose Pack. [NoP Ch10]