Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/201

Rh and strong common sense he was quick to seize the golden opportunities that opened up before him. The time of change and unrest was drawing to its close. Already the old order had well-nigh passed away, the old authority and the old line of rulers gradually disappearing from sheer exhaustion and inanition. The last of the old Nawabs of Dacca, Ghaziuddin Mahomed, known as the Pagla Nawab on account of his eccentricity, was as typical of the passing order of things as Khawja Alimulla was of the rising generation. Well-nigh all the old families were sharing the fate of the Nawabs, coming to an end in weak, feeble specimens of humanity, sunk deep in debt and vice. Their degradation and helplessness were the opportunity of such men as Khawja Alimulla. Gradually as the embarrassed owners were forced to sell in order to pay their debts, he added to his already extensive estates, purchasing Zemindaries not only in the Dacca district but further afield in Chittagong, Bengal, Faridpur, Mymensingh and Tipperah. Everything that he touched prospered. Not the least striking instance of his business ability was his purchase of the famous diamond, the Dariya-i-Nur for only 60,000 Rs. It is now worth several lacs.

From the first he had courted the society of Europeans, realising what few of his co-religionists had then done that if the Muhammadan community was to advance with the times and share in the general