We were only allowed to view the town from the outside, but we could see all this as it is hilly. The throne-hall, with arched windows, the king's palace and defences, occupy the hill. The town on the flat ground is surrounded by walls, battlements, curtained bastions, and towers thrown out, and reminds one of Old Damascus and Jerusalem, and in it dwells many an old feudal Chief. Past those walls, no European or Christian has ever been allowed; at least, at the time I wrote. The Tombs of the Kings are very ancient, are outside the town, and to those we were admitted, and they reminded us of the tower-tombs of Palmyra.
They are enormous domes set on square broad bases, the upper part beautifully carved or covered with Persian tiles or tiles from Sind, bearing Arabic and Hindostani inscriptions. One is supported by slender needle-like monolithic columns. There is a beautiful garden of palm trees, and a labyrinth of arches; and we wandered about this romantic spot, remembering our nursery tales "of all the mines and riches of Golconda," by a crescent moon on a balmy night, the fire-flies spangling the white-domed tombs and the palm gardens. At such a pleasant hour, surrounded by the romances of which we had so much read and heard, we talked over and noted down the history of the far-famed Koh-i-noor, whose birthplace was on this very spot, and whose history I wrote to the Morning Post, September 25th, 1875, for which I was considerably chaffed by the Press. We must not forget that this great diamond was first discovered in these mines in A.D. 1650, and it has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three years. The following day we were obliged to return to Bombay. We had a very good journey, but the heat was so great that the railway officials were walking up and down, periodically waking up the passengers, as they have sometimes been found dead, and two or three cases had occurred about that time.
I would give you my husband's account of the diamond diggings in India, the Nizam diamond, and the history of the Koh-i-noor; but I fear it would be too long, too heavy, except the Koh-i-noor, so I will put them in the Appendix ([E]).
"The Koh-i-noor.
"The Koh-i-noor, or 'Mountain of Light,' is the largest and most celebrated diamond in the world, and is famous throughout the East as the 'Accursed Stone' that brings misfortune and eventually destruction upon the dynasty of every successive possessor. In the East there is a belief as to good or evil fortune attending particular precious stones. It was the same in England in the reign of Elizabeth and the first James, and Shakespeare alludes to this belief in one of his minor poems, but the modern Englishman rejects the absurdity, despite the fact that evil fortune has actually always followed the owner of this particular gem, showing how curiously actual fact co-operates with superstitious theory.
"The Koh-i-noor was first discovered in the mines of Golconda about A.D. 1650, and has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three years. The famous Mir Jumla was then farmer of the diamond mines, and the King's chief minister, a Persian who had been brought young to India, and who rose by rapid gradations to power, was famous for the sagacity of his plans and the ruthless cruelty with which he carried them out. The poor people, under compulsory labour, had to give their services for a bare subsistence to all the farmers of the mines, and under Mir Jumla their condition was desperate; this tempted them occasionally to elude the vigilance of their taskmasters, and secrete a stone if they could. The cruelties that followed the smallest suspicion of such a fault rendered the mines a perpetual scene of horror, especially under Mir Jumla, and it is supposed that some frightful act of fiendish brutality occurred at the finding of the Koh-i-noor, which was cursed by the innocent victim—a curse which ever since, according to the natives of India, has remained attached to it and its possessors.
"Certain it is that before the King of Golconda had long been in possession of it he quarrelled with Mir Jumla, who in return treacherously invited the Mogul Emperor of Delhi, Aurungzeb, to invade his master's territory, promising to join him with the whole of the forces under his command. This he did, and the King of Golconda had to sue for peace, which was granted by Aurungzeb only on his giving him one of his daughters in marriage; making over to him a large portion of his treasures, including the Koh-i-noor, as well as a considerable slice of his territories; and consenting to hold the rest as a fief of the Great Mogul Empire. Some time after, the King of Golconda thought he saw a favourable opportunity to recover his territories, rose against his oppressor, and lost all the rest of his kingdom—nay, all that he possessed. Mir Jumla died a miserable death of disease in exile.
"Aurungzeb, the second royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was at the time of getting it in the zenith of his power; but immediately trouble after trouble rained upon him, and accumulated till he died in 1707. After his death a war began amongst his progeny. The first who succeeded him, the third royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Shah Alum, who died in 1712, five years after his succession. The next King of Delhi, the fourth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Jehander Shah, who was deposed and strangled at the end of one year (1713). Ferok Shah, the next in succession and fifth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, met the same fate in 1719, in the course of which year two other occupants of the throne (sixth and seventh possessors of the Koh-i-noor) passed in the same way thence to the grave.
"So, in twelve years from the death of Aurungzeb, five princes of his line who had ascended the throne and possessed the Koh-i-noor, and six others who had been competitors for it, had come to grief. Moreover, the degraded state of the royal authority during this period had introduced an incurable anarchy, and a disposition in all the Governors of Provinces to shake off their dependency on the head of the Empire. The next King of Delhi, and eighth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was the Emperor Mahmoud Shah, under whose reign the once great empire of Aurungzeb almost fell to pieces. He succeeded in 1719, twelve years after the death of Aurungzeb, being the son of Akter, son of Shah Alum, the son and immediate successor of Aurungzeb, and it was in 1739 that the final blow was given to his authority; his ill fortune culminated in the capture of Delhi by the celebrated Nadir Shah, who in that year invaded India, and, after defeating the army of Shah Mahmoud at Kurnaul, entered as conqueror into the Capital. Then, in consequence of the hostile acts of some of the people, he delivered over the whole City to massacre and pillage; and from the dawn of light till the day was far advanced, without regard for age or sex, all were put to the sword by his ferocious soldiery.
"Fifty-eight days afterwards Nadir Shah commenced his march homewards, carrying with him treasure amounting to twenty millions sterling, jewels of enormous value, and the Koh-i-noor, which was considered by the Persian conqueror to be his greatest prize. Nadir Shah, ninth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was no more fortunate with it than the previous owners had been, for shortly after his return to Persia, in the height of his glory, he was assassinated, leaving no heir to his kingdom; while Ahmed Abdallee, chief assassin, and once his trusted officer, went off, carrying with him most of Nadir Shah's treasure, and amongst it the Koh-i-noor. He meant to found a kingdom for himself out of the territories now known as Afghanistan.
"The dynasty which Abdallee, this tenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, founded, having been crowned at Kandahar in the year 1747, met with the same fate that attended the dynasties of all the possessors of this celebrated stone. His son Timour, after a short and inglorious reign, left his throne to his eldest son Humayoon, twelfth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, who fell into the hands of his next brother, Zemaun Shah, by whom he was cruelly blinded, and rendered incapable of reigning. The same fate befell Zemaun Shah, the thirteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor; he in turn fell into the hands of another brother, Mahmoud, who also put out his eyes and succeeded him, but who was in his turn soon conquered by another brother, Shah Shooja, our Afghan ally. This last did not long maintain his position, and, after various vicissitudes, fled to the Punjaub with his brother Zemaun Shah, carrying with them the Koh-i-noor, of which Shah Shooja was the fifteenth and last Mohammedan possessor. His fate is known to all who have heard or read the story of our fatal expedition to Cabul and its consequences, including Shah Shooja's end. Shah Shooja being now dependent on Runjeet Sing, the then sovereign of the Punjaub, for his very existence, soon found himself compelled to yield to the requirements of this powerful and most unscrupulous potentate, who insisted upon the Koh-i-noor being given up to him. The captive prince had no alternative, and yielded, when the great Sikh potentate became the sixteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor.
"At that time no native sovereign in India was so great as Runjeet, and no kingdom seemed more likely to last than the great Sikh monarchy he had founded, but by a curious coincidence the same ill fate that had always followed the possessor of the Koh-i-noor pursued it into this great family. Runjeet himself died, leaving the Koh-i-noor, which he valued at £1,000,000 sterling, to the priests of Jagannath (Juggernath); but it was preserved in the Lahore Treasury. Runjeet was succeeded in 1839 by his son, Kurruck Sing, who was poisoned the following year. Before the funeral ceremonies were completed, his son was purposely killed by a falling archway. A competition for the throne (now vacant) ensued, between the widow of Kurruck Sing and a reputed son of Runjeet Sing, named Shere Sing, who, though born in wedlock, had been stigmatized by his father as illegitimate. Shere Sing, however, succeeded, but his triumph was of a short duration. Near the close of 1843 he was assassinated, and this led to wide-spreading anarchy, culminating in the two successive wars with the British, that of 1846 and 1848-9, ending in the final annexation of the Punjaub by the British, and the acquisition by it of the celebrated diamond, the Koh-i-noor.
"The natives, with their belief as to the peculiar properties of the stone, prophesied what would happen. The East India Company carried off the booty, which should have been sold and converted into prize-money. They broke up almost directly after the 'Accursed' had entered their hands, when Lord Dalhousie, the Viceroy of India, presented it to her Majesty (3rd of July, 1850, forty-three years ago). It was considered by loyal natives the most sinister circumstance that could have befallen our royal family. Lord Dalhousie did not live very long, and died just as he might have expected to be raised to the highest honours of the State. The Duke of Wellington, who gave the first turn to the cutting, died three months after. We then lost Prince Albert, and I do not believe we any of us knew what we were losing until he was gone.
"When my friend, the then Collector of Hyderabad, was sitting with the Nawáb Mahmoud Khan, the former Minister of that State, and one of the Queen's most loyal subjects after the conquest of the province, he informed the Nawáb of the stone's destination. The latter spat upon the ground, and with an expression of horror uttered the usual Mohammedan exclamation under the circumstances, 'Tobah! repentance in the name of God! Are they going to send that accursed thing to the Queen? May she refuse it!' All natives spit with an exclamation of horror whenever they hear it mentioned. It is impossible for me to go into the causes, nor perhaps ought I to say how, according to Eastern theory, the curse may be averted. Nevertheless I have done so. May I ask if, barring £ s. d., our position or prestige has progressed or declined since we became the possessor of the 'Accursed Stone'? I ask all non-£ s. d. Englishmen whether they consider the Koh-i-noor a comfortable ornament for the English crown, or a pleasant legacy for our most deservedly popular Prince of Wales?"
Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung gave a magnificent evening fête, which was like a scene in the "Arabian Nights." One of the large courts of the palace is a quadrangle, the centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as big as a small lake full of fountains. The salámliks all open out into it with flights of marble stairs. The starlight was above us, and a blaze of wax lights and chandeliers lit up every hall, and coloured lamps and flowers spangled the whole centre. The company consisted of the Nizam's Court and Ministers, and about thirty-six picked Europeans. It began by a Nach; then a beautiful dinner of about fifty-six covers was served in the principal salámlik by retainers in wild picturesque costumes. The band played; we afterwards walked about and conversed, and were presented with attar of roses. We were very sorry to be obliged to leave before we could accept an invitation from the Nizam's 3rd Lancers to witness their Holee Tamasha in their lines at Assuf Nagur, which answers very much to our Carnival, but the day after this we were bound to go to Secunderabad, a prosperous European station with three regiments, which, however, is not the least interesting.