Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/232

HER HIGHNESS SHAH JEHAN, BEGUM, K.C.S.I. (391)

NAWAB OOMRA DULHA. (392) HIS lady, as previously stated, is the daughter of the late Sekunder Beguin. Her late husband was, when she married him in 1856, the bukhshee or paymaster of Bhopal, and was a remarkably handsome man. He died at Bhopal in 1869 or 1870, and Her Highness remains a widow. She has not in any way deviated from the admirable principles of government established by her mother, and displays equal ability and vigour in her proceedings. Her state is therefore in a high state of prosperity, and her subjects content and prosperous. Every successive administration report on Western Malwah contains a special tribute to her praise, written upon details of her most creditable administration and general conduct. The Begum went to Calcutta to meet H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, by whom she was received with marked courtesy and honour. She also attended His Excellency the Viceroy's durbar in Bombay, on which occasion she was installed as a Knight Commander of the Star of India, and took great interest iii all she saw there. Since then Her Highness has contemplated making a branch railway to connect Bhopal with the G. I. P. Railway, but no commencement has been made as yet. In education she takes great personal interest, and has herself studied English so as to write, read, and speak it fairly. She is very fond of the society of English ladies, and has learned many accomplishments, such as needlework, embroidery, and the like. She is having her daughter educated like an English lady. Thus in every way the condition of Bhopal appears to merit the high encomiums recorded of it.