120 CONQUEST OF MYSORE. 



yet know, but against the adjoining bastion, whose fire 

 might have taken the assailants in flank. Enfilading-bat- 

 teries were also constructed, which were expected to render 

 it impossible for the enemy to remain on the walls during 

 the assault. On the 2d May, the two breaching-batteries 

 were completed, and opened their full fire upon the part of 

 the wall called the curtain. In the course of that day the 

 works sustained extensive damage, and in twenty-four hours 

 the breach became nearly practicable ; in which view fas- 

 cines, scaling-ladders, and other implements of storm were 

 brought into the trenches. During the previous night 

 Lieutenant Lalor had crossed the river, which he found 

 easily fordable, with a smooth rocky bottom, the retaining- 

 wall of the fortress being only seven feet high, and present- 

 ing no obstacle whatever to the passage of troops. On the 

 night of the 3d there was a practicable breach of a hundred 

 feet wide^ and one o'clock on the following day was fixed 

 as the hour of assault. 



Tippoo meantime, as the term of his life and empire ap- 

 proached, instead of employing the usual means of deliver- 

 ance from this extreme peril, occupied himself only in su- 

 perstitious and delusive modes of prying into futurity. He 

 had recourse, in his despair, even to the hated and persecuted 

 Bramins. They were instructed to practise, at immense 

 cost, their wild and mystic incantations. All the astrolo- 

 gers, whether from hostile feelings to the sultan, or from 

 seeing that their credit could not otherwise be supported, 

 announced the most imminent danger; prescribing, how- 

 ever, some absurd ceremonies and oblations by which it 

 might possibly be averted. Under their directions he went 

 through a solemn ablution, offered B pompous sacrifice, and 

 steadily contemplated his face reflected in a jar of oil. 

 Somewhat reassured by these sage precautions, and per- 

 suading himself that no attempt would be made during that 

 day, he had sat down to his forenoon meal, when tidings 

 arrived that the enemy were scaling the ramparts. He ran 

 to meet them. 



The morning; of the fourth day of May, 1799, had been 

 busrly spent by the English in completing the breach and 

 making preparations for the assault. The storming-party 

 was composed of upwards of 4000 men, divided into two 

 columns, who were instructed, after entering the breach, to 



