Word: durbars
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...Central Hotel, carrion had been dumped outside the city, and by the time the royal visitors flew in last week scarcely a bird could be seen. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, representing their niece, Queen Elizabeth, were on their way to Kaduna to attend the biggest durbar (homage to princes) in northern Nigeria's history...
...states, their last royal vestiges, excepting their personal wealth, will disappear. Last week, as the day approached, royal princes by the score journeyed into the palmed city of Mysore in custom-built Cadillacs, svelte Jaguars and private trains for a final royal fling. The occasion was the final Dashahara durbar of the fat (300 Ibs.), rich, able, music-loving Maharaja of Mysore, who has ruled his state as rajpramukh since the coming of the republic...
...shopkeepers by the thousand poured into the city from every corner of his old realm, standing in patient lines to glimpse his stables of thoroughbreds, his gold-and-silver coaches, the Daimlers, Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces in his garages. At the great final display in his red-carpeted durbar hall, some 30,000 of them gathered before the shedlike structure, as big as a football field, to see the prince himself...
They had come over mountains, through jungles, across the tsetse-fly belt, by foot, on horses and camels or in shiny new American cars to pay homage to their Queen, Elizabeth II. It was the first durbar (gathering of the princes) since India's turnout for George V in 1911, and the first ever in Africa. Doing her best to match the expectations of her audience, the guest of honor wore an evening dress, bejeweled Garter sash, diamond tiara and an ermine stole. It was a narrow question whether her costume or the excited plumage of her subjects...
There had been no such excitement since Independence Day in 1947, no such pomp since George V, King and Emperor, summoned the princes of India to pay him homage at a royal durbar in 1911. An army of cosmeticians did over New Delhi. Whitewash and fresh paint suddenly beautified the twelve miles from the airport into the city. Unsightly shacks were torn down, red gravel was spread like rouge over rough paths and disheveled roads, and a multitude of women of low caste swept every inch of the main highway with hand brooms. If the visitors would only visit enough...