a beautiful frog, richly shaded and spotted with blue, yellow, orange, white, and black; the black and white halcyon, mentioned at Fort Victoria, and some delicate specimens of the tree-frog, and flying lizard, called by naturalists draco volans. Most of the plants in the Tellicherry district are similar to those indigenous to Anjengo, already described. Many of the wild flowers are beautiful, none more so than the gloriosa-superba, which in the southern districts of Travencore is a destructive weed. The specimens brought to Tellicherry well deserved the epithet superba; the elegant clusters of flowers, arrayed in brilliant flame-colour, pendent in every graceful form, from this climbing plant, running over the hedges, add an uncommon richness to the foreground of the Malabar landscape. The root of the gloriosa is of a poisonous nature, and being sometimes mistaken for edible roots, occasions very deleterious effects, and sometimes death.

Every rural excursion in the neighbouring country, and every social pleasure in the fortress, was tinged with gloom from reports daily reaching us of the sad fate of our unfortunate countrymen in the dominions of Tippoo Sultaun. Some gentlemen belonging to the embassy lately sent from Madras to Mangulore to setile terms of peace with that prince, as noticed in the preceding account of Onore, brought us the most dreadful intelligence of the British prisoners in Mysore. Bednore capitulated to Tippoo Sultaun the end of April 1783, on honourable terms. On an ill-founded and frivolous pretence of an infringement of the treaty, General Mathews, and a garrison of six hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys, were treacherously made prisoners, treated in the most ignominious manner, and marched with savage cruelty to

different fortresses in the Mysore dominions, where they were so closely confined, that during the commissioners' journey they could neither see nor hear from any one of them. By different channels they learned too much of their unparalleled sufferings. During the march from Bednore to their allotted prisons, the officers and men were indiscriminately tied to each other with ropes, and sometimes chained together in pairs, without any distinction; the feeble with the strong, the sick with the healthy, and, not unfrequently, the living with the dead. Several instances having occurred of a lifeless corpse being dragged for miles chained to a wretched comrade, who could obtain no relief from the merciless conductor until they arrived at the nightly halting-place, when the chain was unlocked and the body removed for sepulture, a favour not always granted. In some instances the corpse was thrown out to the prowling hyenas and jackals.

From the memoranda I made on conversing with the gentlemen from Mangulore, I find two different accounts of the fate of General Mathews, and the officers above the rank of lieutenant, so treacherously surrounded at Bednore: that the field-officers, captains, and commissaries of the army were all put to death, there remained no doubt. The manner in which the tyrant's orders were executed is not so clearly ascertained. By some it was asserted that General Mathews, another field-officer, and Mr. Charles Stewart, the head commissary, and formerly a resident at Onore, were summoned to Tippoo's durbar, and received with respectful politeness, which he well knew how to assume. After being seated on the carpet they were each presented with a cup of poisoned coffee; it was offered first to the general, as of the highest rank:

guessing its cruel purport, he hesitated to take it. Mr. Stewart, better acquainted with the sultaun's character, advised him to acquiesce, otherwise insult would be added to cruelty, and taking the cup intended for himself, drank it off, and was in a few minutes either carried out in the struggles of death, or expired at the tyrant's feet. His example was then followed by his fellows in misfortune, which speedily terminated their misery!

There seems some improbability in this story; not that any deed of death was too cruel for Tippoo's character, but I believe it is not very common for the sentence to be executed in the presence of an oriental sovereign. That such instances have occurred, the Persian annals, and those of the house of Timur, sufficiently testify; and Tippoo's favourite mechanical tiger affords great reason to suppose he would have enjoyed the direful spectacle. Nothing more strongly marks his savage propensity than this toy; for it was no more. Although the registers of cruelty, exceeding even 'Tippoo's refinement, furnish instances of death by similar mechanism, where the devoted wretch met his fate in the embrace of a lovely female; where the automaton, smiling at his terror, plunged a dagger in his heart. The plaything of the Mysore tyrant, equally evincing his diabolical disposition, had at least a more innocent tendency. The mechanical tiger was found in a room of the sultaun's palace at Seringapatam, appropriated for the reception of musical instruments, and hence called the ragmehal. It was sent among the presents to his Britannic Majesty, and thus described:

"This piece of mechanism represents a royal tiger in the act of devouring a prostrate European. There are some barrels, in imi

tation of an organ, within the body of the tiger, and a row of keys of natural notes. The sounds produced by the organ are intended to resemble the cries of a person in distress, intermixed with the roar of a tiger. The machinery is so contrived, that while the organ is playing, the hand of the European is often lifted up, to express his helpless and deplorable condition. The whole of this design was executed by order of Tippoo Sultaun, who frequently amused himself with a sight of this emblematical triumph of the Khoodadaud (or God-given) sircar over the English."

A human being, who could pass his hours of relaxation and amusement in this savage manner, may be easily supposed to have enjoyed the death of an European who unhappily fell into his power, whether effected by poison, sword, or bow-string. Tacitus, desirous to paint Domitian's cruelty in the blackest colours, thus contrasts his character with another imperial monster: "Nero had the grace to turn away his eyes from the horrors of his reign; he commanded deeds of cruelty, but never was a spectator of the scene. Under Domitian, it was our wretched lot to behold the tyrant, and to be seen by him, while he kept a register of our sighs and groans. With that fiery visage, of a dye so red, that the blush of guilt could never colour his cheek, he marked the pale languid countenance of the unhappy victims, who shuddered at his frown."

How far Tippoo imitated Domitian's refinements in cruelty, I cannot determine. I received my account of the poisoned coffee in the durbar from a gentleman who had just arrived from Mangulore. He also communicated an additional instance of the tyrant's rigid and cruel discipline during the siege of that fortress. The sultaun, on being informed that the killedar who commanded it

when taken by the English, had since treated them with kindness, determined to sacrifice him: for which purpose, ordering his regular troops from the trenches, and assembling them with the rest of his army, on a hill within view of the Mangulore ramparts, he rode before the lines, surrounded by his guard of silver lances, and all the state insignia. A gallows having been previously erected, the order of death was issued, and the killedar conducted to the spot. While standing under the gibbet with a halter round his neck, Mahomed Ally, an officer of high rank, and a great favourite of the late nabob, Hyder Ally, came forward, and in the most earnest manner supplicated for a pardon, which being indignantly refused, Mahomed Ally ordered his brigade to follow him in an imprudent attempt to prevent the execution. They were soon overpowered, and a dreadful example immediately followed, in the presence of the two generals. The officers and colour-bearers were blown from the guns; the noses and ears of the sepoys were cut off; and Mahomed Ally, after beholding the execution of his friend, was ordered into confinement, and cut off on the road by a private order from the sultaun. Thus perished two of the best and bravest officers in his service. Their only crime consisted in having shewed: too much humanity to the English during the siege of Mangulore; who, from the ramparts, were witnesses of this melancholy spec

tacle.

The other account of the fate of the British officers captured at Bednore, was, that all above the rank of lieutenant were put to death; by what means was not particularly stated, excepting in the case of General Mathews, who being closely confined, and suspecting he was to be taken off by poison, refused for many days to taste