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guessing its cruel purport, he hesitated to take it. Mr. Stewart, 

 better acquainted with the sultaun's character, advised him to ac- 

 quiesce, otherwise insult would be added to cruelty, and taking 

 the cup intended for himself, drank it off, and was in a few minutes 

 either carried out in the struggles of death, or expired at the ty- 

 rant's feet. Mis example was then followed by his fellows in mis- 

 fortune, which speedily terminated their misery! 



There seems some improbability in this story ; not that an} 7 

 deed of death was too cruel for Tip poo's character, but I believe 

 it is not very common for the sentence to be executed in the pre- 

 sence of an oriental sovereign. That such instances have occurred, 

 the Persian annals, and those of the house of Timur, sufficiently 

 testify ; and Tippoo's favourite mechanical tiger affords great rea- 

 son to suppose he would have enjoyed the direful spectacle. No- 

 thing more strongly marks his savage propensity than this toy; for 

 it was no more. Although the registers of cruelty, exceeding even 

 Tippoo's refinement, furnish instances of death by similar mecha- 

 nism, where the devoted wretch met his fate in the embrace of a 

 lovely female ; where the automaton, smiling at his terror, plunged 

 a dagger in his heart. The plaything of the Mysore tyrant, 

 equally evincing his diabolical disposition, had at least a more in- 

 nocent tendency. The mechanical tiger was found in a room of 

 the sultaun's palace at Seringapatam, appropriated for the recep- 

 tion of musical instruments, and hence called the ragmelial. It 

 was sent among the presents to his Britannic Majesty, and thus 

 described: 



" This piece of mechanism represents a royal tiger in the act 

 of devouring a prostrate European. There are some barrels, iu imi- 



