HYDERABAD AND ITS RULERS.

The dominions of the Nizam, of which Hyderabad is the capital, are situated in the southern part of Central India, and are of considerable extent—nearly five hundred miles from north-east to south-west, and about three hundred and fifty in breadth. The Nizam holds a very high place among the native sovereigns of India; his revenue is a large one, and is yearly increasing, greatly owing to the wise administration of the present prime-minister, Sir Salar Jung, a man of singularly intelligent and enlightened views, with a remarkable capacity for government. For upwards of twenty years this able and talented man has powerfully swayed the councils of the Nizams; and since the death of the last ruler, his young son and successor, still a minor, has been entirely under his guidance and control.

The young Nizam is now a boy of nine or ten years of age; and until he is fifteen he will not assume the reins of government. His health is unfortunately not good; his constitution being naturally a feeble one, and the enervating life led in the zenana has in no way tended to strengthen it. He is said to have an amiable disposition and not bad abilities; an English tutor has been provided for him, and he has every facility for receiving a first-class education. This, in conjunction with the wise counsels of his prime-minister, ought to make him a liberal and enlightened ruler when the time comes for him to take the authority into his own hands. Let us trust that it will be so.

Sir Salar Jung speaks English fluently; and on the not rare occasions when he gives an entertainment to the élite of the European society, his manners are those of a polished and high-bred gentleman, anxious that his guests should enjoy themselves, and that none should be overlooked. In his extensive and splendidly furnished palace are several rooms fitted up entirely in the English style, with chairs and sofas of every form and dimension, and tables covered with albums, photographs, and all the innumerable ornaments and knick-knacks of fashionable London drawing-rooms. Here the guests all assemble before dinner; and when the announcement is made, Sir Salar offers his arm to the principal lady present, generally the wife of the English Resident, and conducts her to the dining-room, his own private band playing The Roast Beef of Old England, while the company defile into their places. Here, again, all is in the English style, or rather in that which is known as à la Russe; a long table brilliantly lighted, and decorated with flowers, fruit, and confectionery, all arranged in the most tasteful manner, the band continuing to play at intervals. The dinner is in precisely the same European fashion—one course following the other; and the viands and wine all of the most recherché description; champagne in abundance, liqueurs, everything in short that can gratify the most fastidious palate; Sir Salar himself being a man of the simplest tastes and drinking nothing but cold water.

Dinner ended, all rise, the gentlemen not remaining behind the ladies. Sir Salar again conducts the burra bebee, or principal lady, to a terrace on the roof of the palace, where there are seats arranged for the guests, tea and coffee handed round, a quiet cigar permitted in the background, and where a fine exhibition of fireworks is witnessed. This is the conclusion of a very agreeable entertainment, to which about a couple of hundred people are usually invited, who are all received with the most perfect courtesy by Sir Salar, his young sons, and the members of his suite; and who quit his hospitable roof much impressed by the large-mindedness and frank geniality that so greatly distinguish the Nizam's popular prime-minister.

Sometimes while the company is arriving, a 'nautch' is held in a kind of garden quadrangle, and the guests stroll out and look on for a few minutes, just as they feel inclined. Ordinary nautch-dancing is anything but the incorrect proceeding it is commonly supposed to be; it is really rather a dreary entertainment, and a very few minutes of it will be sufficient to satisfy the curiosity of most people. Be this as it may, nautch-dancing is a very favourite amusement among the high-class natives. When Sir Salar Jung gives a banquet to his fellow-countrymen, there is a nautch on a very large scale; the viands also differ considerably from those presented to his European guests, and consist chiefly of curries of every possible kind and flavour, sometimes more than fifty being served at a meal.

Though he has held the