Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/753

Book XIII. is enclosed on the three sides by a strong wall with towers of stone, which have a ditch before them, excepting in such parts where the rocks render it unnecessary; but the wall continues up the mountains, and surrounds the three forts, connecting them with each other. Besides this exterior enclosure, the interior and higher defences run double round the two forts to the east; and the great mountain to the west, which is the principal fortification, has four enclosures, one below another towards the town in the valley, but off different spaces and elevations; and the highest is a steep rock in the north-west part of the third enclosure above the valley; this far overtops all the mountains, and in the fort on its summit, although small, is a continual spring of water. The extent of wall in all fortifications measures more than 12000 yards; to defend which the French had only 150 Europeans, topasses, or coffrees, 600 Sepoys, and 1000 natives of the adjoining hills, whom they called Colleries. But they supposed the forts on the mountains to be impregnable, and that the town below would not be attempted, because, if taken, the troops which were to maintain it, would be continually subject to the fire of the defences above.

The wall on the east side of the valley extends 1200 yards from the mountain of St. George on the right, to the English mountain on the left, and nearly in the middle passeth along the side of a heap of rocks on which the French had raised a work, which they called the royal battery; under which on the right towards the mountain of St. George stood a gateway opposite to the outward pettah in the plain: but the pettah extended only from this mountain to the rocks of the battery.

Observation and deserters (of whom several came every day) apprized Captain Smith of the state of the garrison and defences, and that the garrison remained in perfect security as well in the town below, as in the forts above. On the night between the 2d and third of February, he marched from his camp with 600 Sepoys, in two divisions, of which the foremost, 200, carried a sufficient number of scaling ladders, and the others were to support when called for. They left the north wall of the pettah on the left, but passed