CAPTAIN BASIL HALL

describing it as minutely as I could, he remarked to
himself, " I'll beat this big Indian man yet ! "

In looking at Buchanan's account of Mysore for a
description of the statue at Shrivanabalagol, I found the
following remark : "Sir Arthur Wellesley visited the
place lately ; " and on inquiring amongst the officers
who had belonged to the army which marched from
Seringapatam to the Mahratta country, some time after
the fall of Tippoo, I learned that the general had actually
gone upwards of thirty miles out of his way to see the
statue, and then galloped back to rejoin the troops,
whose march was never interrupted.

I had also the curiosity lately to ask the Duke of
Wellington himself, whether this account was correct,
and what he thought of the statue ? He said it was
quite true, and added, that he had never seen anything
so magnificent in its way. It will therefore be interest-
ing enough if Mr. Chantrey, with such an example
before him as the Indian statue, and such a subject at
hand, shall make good his boast of beating the Oriental
sculptor.

During my stay at the residency of Mysore, I took
many trips to Seringapatam, for I never felt tired of
wandering amongst the fortifications and other spots
so celebrated in our Eastern history. I got hold of an
intelligent old corporal, a pensioner, who had actually
entered the breach as one of the storming party when
the place was taken in 1799. I easily induced him to
go regularly through the whole siege, Uncle Toby
fashion, from the beginning to the end—from the first
hour the ground was broken, to the capture of the city
and the discovery of Tippoo's body. The trenches
and breaching batteries, of which scarcely any traces
now exist, had been formed on the right bank of the
river, not far below the spot where the river divides
itself into two streams, which, after running apart for
about three miles, again unite, and thus form a loop,

220