“Lastly came Mademoiselle Gaignaud, the Salar Jung’s French governess, who told us a number of extraordinary things connected with Hyderabad life and politics. The late Sir Salar was the best and noblest of men, never said an unkind word or did a dishonest action in his life. All, even his enemies, respected him; and the old Emir el Kebir, the bitterest of them all, sent for him on his death-bed, and recommended his sons to his care. I asked her about Sir Salar’s own death, and she told me she had no doubt in the world that he was poisoned. He had not complained of anything till 9 o’clock on the Wednesday evening, the evening of the water party at the Mir Alum tank, and he died at a quarter past seven on the Thursday. On the Tuesday he had dined at the Residency. The symptoms were not those of cholera. There was no vomiting, except such as he himself caused by putting his fingers down his throat. He complained only of a burning in his throat and chest, and great thirst. After death his colour remained unchanged. Of the two English doctors, one said it was not, the other, Beaumont, said it was cholera, but no post mortem examination was made. She drew a fearful scene of the confusion in the Zenana on the occasion, and of the old minister being plied with potions mixed by two holy men, who wrote words in Arabic and Persian and Sanskrit on leaves, and made an infusion of them, the English doctors being only called in after 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when there was no more hope, and his pulse was gone. A crowd of women friends and relations, eight hundred of them, had collected in the house, and when they heard of the Minister’s death, for he died in the outer part of the house, they shrieked, and cursed, and screamed, and rolled upon the floor, tearing their clothes, breaking their bracelets, and behaving like mad creatures, nobody fully recovering her senses for a week.
“We dined to-night with Salar Jung. It was a merry party, no English but ourselves and young Hugh Gough who was brought up at school with them. Rasul Yar Khan was there, and Seyd Ali Shustari the poet, who made great fun of his rival, the Bulbul, and the son of a late minister of Oude, and Mohammed Ali Bey, and half a dozen intimates. At dinner there was a deal of fun made about the recent political crisis, the poor old Peishkar’s trouble at finding his chair changed, and his wandering in the streets afterwards, and Kurshid Jah’s disappointment, and Trevor’s discomfiture. Trevor knew nothing till the moment of the installation, nor was anything absolutely settled till 7 o’clock that morning, when the chairs were changed. Salar Jung told us he had had the management of everything in the city himself, down to the _menu_ of the banquet, and had planned all the illuminations with his own hand, and the whole had cost no more than 22,000 rupees, while Kurshid Jah had spent, I think he said, four lakhs on what was done outside the city.