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 XVII.

PRINCES OF INDIA.

January 6.

TO the visitors from Europe nothing in the Durbar ceremonies has been more interesting than the appearance of the ruling chiefs. Their splendid costumes, their clusters of gems, and their quaint retainers have been a continual delight. The variety of the assemblages has brought home more than any figures can do the vastness of the Indian Empire. One realises at last the real meaning of the fact that the Indian princes hold sway over 655,000 square miles of territory, with a population exceeding 63 millions — a people more numerous by fourteen millions than the inhabitants of the German Empire. There are to-day a hundred and twelve chiefs encamped around Delhi.

The ruler whose movements have attracted the greatest attention is naturally his Highness the Nizam, whose state contains over eleven millions of people, and whose revenue is forty millions of rupees a year. Although personally adhering to marked simplicity in dress, his temporary residence at Ludlow Castle, rented from the Delhi Club, is furnished in magnificent style. The private apartments contain the most costly carpets, hangings and shawls, many of them the work of