Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/261

Rh not find the town, and asked leave to halt until day should break. Setting down the palankeens, they stretched themselves on the ground, and were soon fast asleep. At dawn, they were off again, and soon ran, with grunt and shout, through the unguarded entrance into the fort of Arnee.

Arnee was once a stronghold of Hyder Ali, and his arsenal. That remarkable man, who, from serving as a volunteer and a private in the army of the rajah of Mysore, became master of his sovereign, and one of the most powerful opponents of British power in India, at this place repulsed the attack of the famous English commander, Coote. But it was wrested from his son Tippoo, and for sixty years has been in the hands of the English. At first, as a frontier station, it was occupied by a strong force; but now, after the lapse of a few years, so rapidly has the Anglo-Indian empire grown, it is in the centre of the Company's territories in Southern India, and needs no garrison. So completely is the country around subdued to British power, that no troops are needed to overawe or restrain its people. The barracks are unoccupied, except by an English captain and a few sepoys, (Hindu soldiers;) and the