1909] Bleriot Flies across the Channel 261 



" This he declared to be an inspired verse. Later he displayed great 

 intelligence when I showed him my Arab horses, chestnut with four 

 white feet and a blaze, being, he said, the favourite Indian colour, espe- 

 cially that dark chestnut (Feluka's colour) which he recognized just as 

 Mohammed Abdu had done as kumeyt. 



" 26th July. — Belloc tells me that the government is seeking an 

 excuse to treat Dingra as a criminal lunatic instead of hanging him. 

 That traitor Stead had a letter in yesterday's ' Observer ' urging this 

 on the ground that it would punish him more. I have written to Dillon 

 showing how dangerous a precedent it would be, as admitting the right 

 of an English Government to inflict lifelong torture on its political 

 enemies when it finds one brave enough to face death and defy them. 

 Khaparde says that certainly Dingra would prefer death, because he 

 would then at once re-enter life in a higher sphere of being, instead of 

 having to wait twenty or thirty years in prison for it, with the risk of 

 becoming deteriorated by the too long persecution. 



" 29th July. — The papers are full of flying feats, a Frenchman, 

 Bleriot, having flown across the Channel. How interested Robert 

 Lytton would have been in this ! He always maintained forty years 

 ago that the true solution of the flying problem lay in a machine which 

 should be heavier, not lighter than air. 



" 30th July. — There has been something of a revolution in Spain, 

 caused by an unsuccessful piece of filibustering by the Spanish Gov- 

 ernment in Morocco. The people at Barcelona and Madrid refused to 

 go on with the War there. It is an excellent symptom of anti-jingo 

 feeling, and will do good everywhere, though it will also work to the 

 profit of Socialism. 



" 1st Aug. (Sunday). — Belloc and Basil Blackwood came to lunch- 

 eon; Belloc in one of his most talkative moods. He tells me Father 

 John Pollen was with Tyrrell the day before he died. Belloc was 

 at Mulberry House, too, though not inside Tyrrell's room. There has 

 been a great dispute in the papers as to the true facts, but Pollen's visit 

 is mentioned by none of the writers, unless it be as ' the other priest ' 

 who gave him absolution. 



" 15//? Aug. (Sunday). — We have Professor Cockerell and his wife 

 here for the week-end with Meynell and again Khaparde. Khaparde, 

 who was born a native of the Berar province of Hyderabad, has told 

 me the story of how the province was finally made over to the Calcutta 

 Government on a perpetual lease in 1903. x Khaparde's account is that 

 when Curzon was at Hyderabad in that year he was invited to dine with 

 the Nizam, he being on one side of the Nizam and Lady Curzon on the 



1 See my " India under Ripon " for an account of the intrigues by the Indian 

 Foreign Office to get hold of the Berars. 



