Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/185

Book III. shot: their cannon were ill served, and did but little damage, and the French battalion never appeared until the firing ceased, when they were discovered taking possession of the village, in the rear of which the rest of the army likewise pitched their tents.

Altho' the post in the straights was deemed defensible, it was feared from the great superiority of Chunda-saheb's cavalry and Sepoys that he would detach a body of men, and post it between the camp and Tritchinopoly, from which city the army drew all its provisions across the two largest rivers in the Carnatic. From this apprehension it was determined to retreat without delay, and the army decamped silently in the night; they never halted till two the nest day, fatigued to excess with a march of eighteen hours, performed without refreshment in the hottest season of this sultry climate, and after the fatigues they had endured in the action of the preceding day. Luckily the enemy's cavalry were so dispirited with the loss they then sustained, that they never attempted to interrupt the retreat: they however followed at a distance, and before night took post within three miles of the army, which was now arrived within sight of Tritchinopoly, and encamped close to the northern bank of the Coleroon. This river is a principal arm of another called the Caveri, which has its source in the mountains within thirty miles of Mangalore on the coast of Malabar, and passing through the kingdom of Mysore, runs 400 miles before it reaches Tritchinopoly. About five miles to the north-west of this city the Caveri divides itself into two principal arms. The northern is called the Coleroon, and disembogues at Devi-Cotah: the other retains the name of Caveri; and about twenty miles to the eastward of Tritchinopoly begins to send forth several large branches, all of which pass through the kingdom of Tanjore, and are the cause of the great fertility of that country. For several miles after the separation, the banks of the Coleroon and Caveri are in no part two miles asunder, in many scarcely one; and at Coiladdy, a fort fifteen miles to the east of Tritchinopoly, the two streams approach so near to each other, that the people of the country have been obliged to fling up a large and strong mound of earth to keep them from uniting again. The long slip of land enclosed by the two channels between Coiladdy and the place where