146

was well-known how he turned day into night and
night into day. Such a life was sure to tell upon
his health in the end— and it did. Even his iron
constitution could not hold out for many years.
Though he was strong — so strong that he could
stand for hours in one place without moving ; and
though he had been a hardy horseman, an untiring
sportsman and a wonderful shot capable of endur-
ing fatigue such as few men could have borne —
the time came at last when some spring within him
seemed to snap and he collapsed. That woeful
day in September, 1911 , on which he was laid to rest
with his forefathers within the precincts of the
Mecca Mas j id was indeed a black day for Hyder-
abad and seemed to portend misfortune. It was
in this year that the plague which had been kept
at bay, as it were, for many years found its way
into Hyderabad at last. Some suspicious cases
were heard of within a week of the Nizam's death.
There is always an element of superstition in the
human mind, and people felt a mysterious connec-
tion between the two events/'

Sir S alar Jung I and the men who worked under him

If e^^a-mark was, bora great in Hyderabad,
it was the First Salar Jung,5* who was great in soul,
great in thought and great in deed. Fashioned
by nature's own hand and endowed with qualities

* "... .His name has been inscribed on the roll of India's great men.
.QjL.tai§.iUustrious man, the wMe country is a tomb-----" (The Resident
at Hyderabad in his letter to the Government of India),
10*