Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/96

 as his guest in 1770. Seven years later Lord Pigot, disgraced by an unjust arrest, and broken-hearted by the action of his unsympathetic council, was driven out to the Mount from the fort, only to return in his coffin, and be carried across the bridge to his last resting-place a nameless grave in St. Mary's Church within the walls of the fort (1777). The Duke of Wellington as the Honourable Colonel Wellesley, Lord Cornwallis, Sir Thomas Munro, Sir Eyre Coote, and many other distinguished soldiers and administrators have traversed the island and crossed the bridge in their time, as well as the more humble privates and non-commissioned officers who contributed their share in the making of the British Empire in South India.

Whether they passed in the pale yellow light of the morning, with its blue haze, its sparkling dewdrops, and fresh sea-breeze, or whether they hurried homewards in the gorgeous colouring of the sunset, the scene that they gazed upon was the same as that which meets the eye of their successors and descendants as they cross the bridge to-day. The broad expanse of the Cooum reflected the group of hospital buildings contemporary with the bridge. The fisherman, wading waist-deep, cast his net, and the laden barge floated up to Chintadripettah with its load of firewood. Drum and bugle sounded over the grassy sward of the island, and the moan of the surf came in on the breeze. The kingfishers dipped from the old piers of the bridge, and the crows foraged in the mud below.

There is one blot upon the history of the Wallajah bridge. In 1875 Lord Hobart, the Governor, died. His remains were placed in a vault in St. Mary's Church. The funeral passed along the road over the island and entered the fort by the Wallajah gate. At that period a wooden footway was attached to the north end of the