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State under the great Minister, stood Moulvi
Syed Hussain Bilgrami (afterwards Nawab Imad-
ul-Mulk). He was quite a new type in this
country—a tall, handsome man of fair complexion
with long brown moustaches—a fine combination
of eastern and western learning and refinement,
a learned moulvi and an English scholar, to whom
literature was a pleasant recreation in the midst
of less congenial labour. Approximating to the
western social type, he was well received in
English society. He was one of the Minister's
secretaries, and at a later period in the Second
Salar Jung's regime he was made Secretary to
the Council of State. Besides this he occupied a
more honoured place as tutor to the young Nizam,
and as his Secretary. Not being a man of enter-
prise in a worldly sense, he remained contented
wherever he was placed and took life easy, and
the literary and social man in him was always
trying to escape from the official. He had the
honour of being presented to Her Majesty
Queen Victoria when Sir Salar Jung visited London.
He was a man of character (a fact that was noticed
by the Resident Sir David Barr years afterwards).
He was found incapable of plotting and intriguing
—when intriguing came .to be looked upon
as a necessary qualification for rising to emin-
ence ! This was during the short period of dark-
ness through which Hyderabad had to pass in the
first half of the last decade of the last century- It
was the period in which some aspiring men attempt-
ed to climb higher but missed their footing and