PART TWO
CHAPTER III.—IMPRESSIONS OF THE OLD
REGIME
HIS HIGHNESS THE LATE NIZAM AND
THE OLD HYDERABAD
" Old times are changed, old manners gone."
I am conscious that I am making this chapter dispro-
portionately lengthy, but I cannot resist quoting as many
passages from Sir Nizamat Jung's impressions of old Hyder-
abad as may give my readers some idea of the conditions
and causes that serve to explain the contrast between the
old and the new order of things, and the change in men's
mentality and outlook. The opinions and the language
are entirely Nizamat Jung's own. He has his own point
of view, with which one may not agree, but he has the ad-
vantage of having seen what many of us have not, and of
having lived and moved amongst men and amid thoughts
and feelings and modes of life of which we have no direct
knowledge.
" As a loiterer in the past, " says he, "I
delighf in the reminiscences of the last years of
that grand old man, Sir Salar Jung, in the latter
half of Qneen Victoria's reign. The sixth
Nizam, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, the ' Beloved of
All/ was then the beloved of all hearts in
Hyderabad, a boy prince who was to become a
right royal figure, an embodiment of stateliness
and grace. He has now become a legend;. but
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