Page:Modern Hyderabad (Deccan).djvu/20

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8
MODERN HYDERABAD.

Langar Ceremony, nothing so much as a huge, humming, buzzing beehive only, to make the simile correct, the bees should be of every colour and not mere brown and black insects.

Now on Langar Day, October 1913, into these swarms of his loyal subjects, drove H. H. the Nizam, quite unexpectedly and heralded only by whizzing whirring rockets.

"His Highness!" "His Highness!" shouted galloping policemen, and the people in the streets hastily divided and piled themselves up on either side of the road. Silence seemed to fall on the masses, and only the voices of those in command were heard while a carriage drove past, a carriage driven by an English coachman in yellow satin, who wanted only a powdered full-bottomed wig to make him look perfect.

In the carriage sat H. H. the Nizam, quietly dressed, as usual, in a dark English suit and the yellow Hyderabad turban, and on either side of him were the two eldest princes, while behind him stood a tiny princess, who bowed incessantly to her father's delighted subjects.

Now it had seemed to me that the face of H. H. the Nizam had worn a somewhat