Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life

him at Lady St. Helier's (then Lady Jeune) at a luncheon or party in 1886. We asked him to dinner at 3 Great Stanhope Street, and he accepted-and we also asked the Jeunes. Mr. Chamber

r meeting at her house.) "He is in the house," was my reply-whereat she gasped and nearly fell backwards. I well recollect the stern disapproval of our old-fashioned Tory butler Freeman. He showed it in his manner, though he did not venture at the moment to put it into words-but a few days afterwards we had another dinn

ed him. In reply to my rather anxious inquiry as to what had gone wrong he said: "That fine young fellow Lord Salisbury's son did not hold himself up properly. I spoke to his servant about it, and he said it was his book. I said our young lord [Villi

I PE

changes were the result of conviction. He once said to me that he had invariably held that the people ought to have what they really wanted, and that more than once he had discovered that he was mistaken in what he had previously imagined to be their desires, and that then he was willing to follow their lead. "For instance," he said, "I thought the country wanted Secular Education and therefore advocated it, but experience showed me that this was not the case and I therefore ceased to support it." Of course this principle may be pushed too far. A statesman ought to have some convictions from which he cannot and will not depart, but it would be absurd to say that a man entering political life is bound to have a cut-and-dried programme which nothing will make him modify. Moreover Mr. Chamberlain had grown up in a narrow commercial circle, and larger knowledge of men and manners was bound to widen his views. On the first occasion that he stayed with us at Osterley in June 1887 and June 1888 his daughter Miss Beatrice Chamberlain came with him. I see by our old Visitors' Book that we had some very good Conservatives to meet them-in 1888 Lady Lathom and her daughter Maud, George Curzon, Lord and Lady Kintore, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, and my husband's cousin, Prince Louis Esterhazy. I have been told that more than one person fi

married the charming Miss Endicott, now Mrs. Carnegie

URE FO

ollections of the first of

we neither of us thought in our hearts that he was likely to attain Cabinet rank in England. Then he said, "If I go, will you come out and stay with me?" It was a new but attractive project, and we gave a provisional promise which we fulfilled in the autumn of 1888. My parents undertook to keep an eye on the younger children and to have them at Stoneleigh for part of our absence-it was arranged that Villiers should join us when his Christmas holidays began, and the Eton authorities consented that he should miss the following term as it was thought that India would be equally educational. We accordingly took our passages on the P. and O. Arcadia, which left Marseilles on Friday, October 26th. My brother Dudley and Mr. Charles Buller sailed in the same ship, which was a new one and had improvements then reckoned very novel. For instance, it had

sal Brotherhood, Study of ancient oriental texts, Investigation of hidden psychical forces. It admits members of any religion, but requires universal toleration. Practically its own tenets are Buddhi

nst spooks, as she often had to stay in a house which she believed to be haunted. "Give me something you are accustomed to wear," he said, and she handed him a ring. He stared at it, and said, "If you could see-you would see two rays" (blue rays I think he said) "going from my eyes into this ring." "What will it do?" she asked. "Well," was the answe

T AND PROF

nel Olcott, with all your fine ideas for doing good how can you lend yourself to that nonsense of broken tea-cups and so on?" "And," continued Ma

he would keep privately, "not for publication." What good it would do him in that case is not very apparent, but the net was spread in vain in the sight of

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e had met two tattered figures which proved to be Speke and Grant coming back from tracing that part of the river which flowed from the Victoria Nyanza. They urged him to continue his undertaking as they said that if he also found the source he was seeking "England will have done it"-and she did. He asked them to come into his camp-but they hung back-and when he asked why they explained that they heard he had Mrs. B

AMUEL

lso said that he himself had seen all the Plagues of Egypt, though he said that for "lice" one should read "ticks"! We asked how about the Darkness? He said he had been in a Khamsin wind when for twenty minutes you could not see the flame of a candle close by; and as f

langer" hymn, as the hero of the black horse is forgotten, but then the Germans hissed and the French applauded. The captain was appea

times since, and, bad sailor as I am, only wish I were young enough to undertake it again. Our cicerones treated us mercifully, but I believe some greenhorns are not so fortunate. I heard of one youth who was warned in advance that the sailors and others were sure to try to take him in. He

awed by the three immense heads joined together in the Central Division of the great Central Hall, representing Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu. I was specially interested in the designs representing the story of the favourite Hindu deity Ganpati or Ganesha. You see the marriage of his parents Siva and Parvati, his birth, and a battle among the gods and demons in the course of which he had his head cut off. His irate mother substituted an elephant's head and declared t

nd to us in Bombay, and a Parsee, Mr. Allbless, s

BLES

ering in giant terraces above fertile, well-watered valleys. The soil was generally deep brown or deep red. As darkness came on we saw quantities of fire-flies amongst the luxuriant vegetation. Next morning the view from the house across the valley to a gigantic square-topped mountain beyond was so dazzling as almost to take away one's breath. Few things are so impressive as to arrive after dark

places, including the haunts of the great Mahratta Chieftain Sivaji. Our introduction to

ar the Reays, and they were also very good to us. Lady Patricia Ramsay was then a most attractive little girl of t

battery of mule artillery up the steep hill leading thereto. This fort had an arched gateway almost concealed in the hill-side, with a door covered with ir

THE A

gh Northern India seeking for a suitable representative who would consent to play the required part. At last they reached the borders of Persia, and there he heard of a holy man belonging to the then Royal Family who would, he thought, fulfil all the requirements. Before introducing his followers he contrived a private interview with the Imaun (as I believe he was called) and offered to hand over to him all the disciples and their future offerings if he would assume the character of an Avatar and pretend to have received those already given. The Princely Saint consented on condition that the Hindu believers should become Mohammedans-no doubt this wholesale conversion to th

be very good for him, but the boy was too acute to be kept in the dark. His mother was a Persian princess, and he is immensely rich from offerings made to himself and his ancestors. Even in boyhood he was called "His Highness," that title having been given h

ad bathed! Lord Reay asked whether he would have to fast in Ramadan, but he said not till he was fifteen. I asked what

ave said to his friends that he could drink wine if he liked because his devotees were made to believe that his throat was so holy that it changed to water on touching it-and he added that "being a god was not all beer and skittles!" I must say that when he sat near me at dinner at Osterley he did not drink wine. He was once dining there when in England for King Edward's co

ng examples of native life and tradition both in the pauses on our journey and from the train. As we drew near Hyderabad there were numbers of immense syenite stones piled on each other or scattered over the plain. Legend says that when Rama was pursuing the giant Ravana who had carrie

AT HYD

e boundary of the course, but even more brilliant were the garments of the native nobles and gentlemen who walked about in the ring and gathered in the grandstand. They wore long coats of every conceivable hue and of rich materials, flowered red and green and gold silk, purple velvet or embroidered white, with gold-worked belts, bright turbans, and sometimes swords. Th

n of his Court, salaaming to him and to each other with strictly Oriental etiquette, and mingled with them English officers, ladies and civilians. Flags were flying surmo

like was the light, which interfered with his sleeping. Light is the last thing of which I should have expected England to be accused, but there is in India no great variety in the length of night and day all the year round, so my friend was unaccustomed to the very early dawn of an English summer day. Not long ago

NIZAM OF

alds, something like a tiara of diamonds for the front of a turban, large single diamonds in rings, one remarkable ruby engraved with the seals of the Moghul emperors, and an uncut diamond valued at ￡720,000 which was as uninteresting to look at as a pebble picked up on a beach. If I recollect rightly that diamond afte

f 35 rupees, which can, of course, be increased by his favour. There was a story going when we were at Hyderabad that the women had, shortly before, inveigled the Nizam into the depths of the Zen

, which was at that time quite a new experiment in India. When we saw it the head mistress was a Mrs. Littledale, a Christian Hindu lady married to an Englishman. The main idea was that the young ladies should be sufficiently educated to be real companions to the men whom they were ultimately to marry. One of the pupils on the occasion of our visit was a cousin of the Bilgramis engaged to one of Syed Hossain's sons. The young man in question was then at Oxford, and understood to be anxious for the education of his lady-love. The whole question of the higher education of Indian women, particularly of those of the upper classes, bristles with difficulties. It has much advanced in the thirty-three years which have elapsed since our first visit to Hyderabad, but the problems ha

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ccasion when the fort at Secunderabad was brilliantly illuminated with electric lights for some festivity he offered to drive her out late, when the people had gone, to see the effect, but she declined. On the other hand, when we dined with the Financial Secretary Mehdi Ali, and the ladies went afterwards into an inner drawing-room to see Mrs. Mehdi Ali, she rather pathetically said to me in perfect English: "I cannot go to call upon you, Lady Jersey. I am

ell, and five others, were invited for eleven o'clock the following morning to the Zenana in the same Palace. Of course brothers may be present with their sisters. With a truly Oriental disregard of time the Munir appeared about 11.

believe the breeches were sewn on! One of the sisters wore yellow as a prevailing colour, and had bare arms and feet. The other had a magnificent gold embroidered crimson velvet jacket, a green chuddar, and pink st

ST IN A

ys. Water was the main drink, but anyone who liked could ask for coffee. Everyone had plates, and the Englishwomen were provided with spoons and forks, but the Indian ladies ate (very tidily) with their fingers, over which attendants poured water after breakfast. The two sisters (half-sisters really) sat side by side, and laughed and chattered incessantly. Miss White, a lady doctor who was p