[Sidenote: 33. Scene near Hyderabad.] [Sidenote: 34. Street Scene, in Hyderabad.] [Sidenote: 35. The Nizam’s Palace, Hyderabad.] Central India consists of Native Feudatory States, which acknowledge the British suzerainty, but are immediately ruled by their own Maharajas, of whom the two most important are the Maratha princes Holkar at Indore, and Sindhia at Gwalior. There is another larger patch of blue, southeastward of Bombay. This is the State of Hyderabad, ruled under British suzerainty by the Nizam. This great prince is however no Maratha, but a Musulman. His people for the most part speak the Dravidian language Telugu, and are Hindu by religion. Thus we see that none of these large states, each as important as one of the smaller European kingdoms, has for its ruler a man of the same race as the people. Sindhia and Holkar are Marathas ruling Hindi populations; the Nizam is a Musulman ruling Telugu-speaking Hindus. The Gaikwar of Baroda, it may be added, who governs a small but very rich and populous territory, is a Maratha ruling a Gujrati population. We have here a typical landscape in the Nizam’s territory, and see that it is not very different from the Maratha landscapes. It is on the same open Deccan plateau. This is a scene in Hyderabad itself, showing a procession of elephants, and then we see the Nizam’s Palace. [Sidenote: 36. Golkonda Fort.] Next we have a view of Golkonda Fort, placed on one of the usual flat-topped hills, and defended on one side by a large sheet of water. Golkonda is in the neighbourhood of Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam’s dominions. Its name has become proverbial as indicative of immense wealth. Formerly it was the great Indian centre of diamond cutting and polishing, or in other words the Amsterdam of India. The diamonds were not found in the immediate neighbourhood, but in the extreme southeastern corner of the Nizam’s territory. [Sidenote: 37. The Same, nearer view.] [Sidenote: 38. A Bastion at the top of Golkonda Fort.] [Sidenote: 39. View from Golkonda Fort, looking Northeast.] [Sidenote: 40. Hindu Temple, Golkonda Fort.] [Sidenote: 41. Musulman Mosque, Golkonda Fort.] Here is a nearer view of Golkonda Fort, and here a view over the plain, from the bastion at the top of the Fort, from which can be seen the Tombs of the Kings about half a mile away. These kings belonged to a great Musulman dynasty which ruled here during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was overthrown by Aurangzeb. Next we have, near the summit of the Fort, the ruins of a Hindu temple, and close by, shown in the following slide, the remains of a Muhammadan mosque. The Fort, therefore, in its ruins, records the essential history of the country, first the Hindu civilization, and then two successive Musulman conquests.