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With Hyderabad citizens kneeling at the roadsides in prayer this week the Jubilee began with the 26-year-old Rolls-Royce followed by two 30-year-old Rolls-Royces gliding through the streets escorted by four regiments of infantry, a detachment of native cavalry gaily caparisoned, two batteries of artillery, a regiment of Arabs and the personal bodyguard of His Exalted Highness who employs for this purpose Sidis from Africa. Instead of cheering the populace prayed and the Nizam of Hyderabad on his Rolls Throne wore not a single ornament or diadem and was not in uniform. As on other days (see cut, p. 20) His Exalted Highness wore an ordinary suit and simple turban.
On the Mohammedan theory that "all are equal before Allah in prayer," the World's Richest Man prostrated himself with his subjects at the Great Mosque and everyone prayed. Poems were recited and the venerable Hindu Premier read an address hailing his Mohammedan Monarch as "today the sole relic of Mogul greatness in India."
Uncorked amid huzzahs was an appointment signed by His Majesty Edward VIII, and saved up for last week's Jubilee Durbar, creating Hyderabad's Crown Prince Azam Jah additionally Prince of Berar. Thus officially ended was the long dispute over Berar which was almost taken away from Hyderabad by domineering Viceroy Lord Curzon. Berar is about the size of Switzerland, immensely valuable because its peculiar soil produces the finest cotton which can be grown in India.
The State of Hyderabad, "Heart of the Indian Peninsula," occupies the centre of the continental lobe. Unusually fertile and desert free, it is dotted with artificial lakes and storage reservoirs, has no sea-coast—a grave disadvantage—but is well watered by a system of rivers on which float many a quaint coracle. The district drains eastward into the Bay of Bengal.
The Residency. No royal and ruling Indian, not even His Exalted Highness, ever escapes a British Residency, an outpost of London which makes him feel the more or less iron hand of Britain in a less or more velvet glove. In his early days as Hyderabad's ruler the present Nizam dismissed the Diwan or acting cabinet and directed affairs as his own Prime Minister for some years with such vigor that "The Residency" was often rumored pressing for his abdication. Came the War. The Nizam's $100,000,000 gift to Britain squared many things, and Sir Akbar Hydari now manages to square the rest. However, the Richest Man considered his Royal Family not too exalted last week to accept the hospitality of British Duncan George Mackenzie, in the white-columned palace of the Raj (see cut, col. 1).