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appointed A.D.C. to His Majesty the King
Emperor, and was made a Member of the Victorian
Order. His gracious master, the Nizam, also
conferred on him the titles of Afsar-ud-Dowlah,
Afsar-ul-Mulk and raised him to the rank of
Commander-in-Chief of his forces.
These were his worldly honours, but higher
honours were in store for him. He went on
pilgrimage to Mecca in 1923, and spent months
at Medina, during which he is said to have re-
hearsed a scene out of the old patriarchal page
of life—a shepherd pasturing a flock ! I heard
this from people at Medina who still remembered
and spoke of him with affection and admiration.
He had the privilege of visiting the Holy
cities twice and returned with a deeper sense
of the vanity of worldly honours. But he conti-
nued to be active as before so far as his duties
were concerned ; though his inner renunciation
of worldly vanities was becoming confirmed into
habit. Thus by degrees his character rose higher
in the eyes of those who watched its evolution.
The capable self-made man of the world—soldier
and courtier—had gradually grown to be a sancti-
fied spirit. People who had regarded him as
being too much Europeanised, were surprised to
see the change, except the more thoughtful
amongst us who could understand the silent
working of the hidden propensities of the human
soul.
It is not without pride that I think of Sir Afsar
as a man belonging to Hyderabad. His ancestors
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