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Rh by the invaders had been divested of all power of affording relief to their necessities. Conflagration had done its work – the grain not burnt had been buried; and not an inhabitant remained through the expanded waste to recount the story of its devastation, or guide the steps of those who now traversed its blighted fields. Their march seemed to be through a country where some great convulsion of Nature had at once swept away every human being, and everything by which human life could be supported. At length, at a stone fort called Malavelly, some grain was found; but the quantity lost on the march was so great that even this opportune and happy discovery did not preclude the necessity of reducing the daily issue of rice to one half of the usual allowance. Thus struggling with difficulties, and amid the terrors of famine, the army reached Arikera, about nine miles east of Seringapatam, on the 13th of May.

Its approach was regarded by Tippoo with no common apprehension; for, from the moment of the fall of Bangalore, the attack upon which place he had regarded as mad and hopeless, he became alarmed for the safety of his capital. Under the first impulse of fear, he had ordered the removal to Chittledroog of his treasure, his harem, and the families of his officers, whom he retained in pledge for the fidelity of those to whom they belonged; but by the advice of his mother, who exercised a powerful influence over him, and who represented that such a proceeding, being imputed to despondency, would have a bad effect on the minds of his troops and subjects, he abandoned his intention. But though Tippoo allowed himself to be dissuaded from one manifestation of fear, he gave way to others, which distinctly showed the state of his mind. His hatred of the English had been gratified by causing the walls of the houses in the principal streets of Seringapatam to be decorated with caricatures of the people whom he abhorred, of enormous size, and, in some instances, of disgusting character. These were now by royal command obliterated, and the walls of Seringapatam