ABSTRACT
Hyderabad, in the Deccan, the capital of the Nizam's dominions, was one of the largest and most fascinating of Indian cities. It lay among trees and artificial lakes, surrounded by bare granite hills and weird-shaped rocks, reminding the Victorian writer and traveller, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, of a town in Arabia. The Resident at Hyderabad was thus the most important of all the Residents and Agents in the Political Department. The British Resident was thus in Hyderabad not as the agent of a conquering power, but as the ambassador of an ally. Nevertheless, as the representative of the might of British India, which completely encircled the Nizam's dominions, he wielded a very considerable authority. Mosquitoes and nocturnal chantings were nothing to the attractions of being Resident at Hyderabad; in Temple's words, 'the pleasantest appointment that could be found'.
