rom contemporary accounts, including Beatson, it is evident that the assailants in 1799 were unaware of the deep defensive ditches between the inner and outer walls of Seringapatam. Initially, they appeared impassable, but, as Col.Wilks reports, 'Gen Baird had ordered every possible effort to be made for effecting the passage; a narrow strip of terreplein, left for the passage of the workmen, employed in the excavation of the ditch, was discovered by a detachment of the 12th. The passage of the ditch, and the ascent of the inner rampart of the south-western face, were effected by mere climbing; that face of the inner rampart having to the last moment been scoured by a perfect and destructive enfilade, which had greatly facilitated the operations of the right attack.'

This photograph, looking up from the edge of the ditch towards the monument at the Breach, was taken in February, when the River Cauvery was still quite full of water. For the next three months, there is virtually no rain, and temperatures rise to about 35 C before the monsoon brings water in late April or May. In 1799, the monsoon burst the day after the Fall of Seringapatam, a reminder of the unpredictable but critical challenges which climate imposed upon any military campaign in India.

It was to reduce these problems that, in 1902, the East channel of the River Cauvery was harnessed at Sivasumudram, supplying power to the Kolar Gold Field, and later to Bangalore and Mysore cities. In recent times, when excavations began for the great Krishnaraja Sagar Dam, an inscribed stone was discovered near Gulle-kolli which recorded that. Tipu had identified the very same place for the construction of his own dam, in 1797, 'by the grace of God, and the help of the Prophet.'