Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/663

Book XII Kistnarow, who had been ordered to look out, and had advanced with his party to Volcondah. The first division of the Mysore troops, consisting of 1000 horse, and 2000 Sepoys, arrived at Thiagar on the 4th of June, and the next day some of their parties, roaming to collect cattle, skirmished with Kistnarow's near the pettah of Volcondah. The rest of the division still remaining at Thiagar were 30 miles nearer Pondicherry; and Kistnarow believing the exaggerated accounts of their numbers, and being in want of ammunition, hurried back to protect the districts of Verdachelum, which had been entrusted, not without profit, to his care; from hence he sent his report and his fears to Colonel Coote, with earnest request of reinforcements; and then, he said, he would march, and beat the Mysoreans.

A month before the rumours of these troops, the forces which the Mysore government maintained in Dindigul had commenced hostilities against the adjacent Polygars depending on Tritchinopoly; and it was reported that they intended to get possession of the pass of Nattam, which would preclude the immediate communication between Tritchinopoly and Madura. But as the Mysoreans in these quarters had several times before attacked the possessions of the Nabob, their present hostilities had not led to any suspicions of the greater effort which Hyder Ally was preparing against the Carnatic; nor were they deemed of danger to require immediate resistance from this province: but Mahomed Issoof sent a detachment from Tinivelly to Madura, from whence they were to take the field and enter the districts of Dindigul; and the troops maintained by the Nabob for the protection of the districts of Tritchinopoly, assembled at the pass of Nattam, under the command of Hussain Cawn, who had served with the French at Terriore and Seringham. until they retreated out of these countries, when he offered his service to the Nabob, and was accepted.

The heats of the season, since the land-winds had set in in April, had this year been much more intense than usual; and had struck sickness through the camp. Sixty Europeans had died, and 300 were in the hospital, and to preserve the rest from the sun, the day-duty of the line was done by the Sepoys. From the same attention