On the 29th of January the army was reviewed by General Charles Earl Cornwallis, K. G., who had arrived from Bengal to assume the command, and who expressed great satisfaction at the appearance of the troops. His Lordship was at this period Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies, and had quitted Bengal on the 6th of December of the previous year, and landed at Fort St. George, Madras, on the 30th of the same month. The army arrived in the vicinity of Vellore on the 11th of February 1791, and the troops were ordered into the fort. Tippoo was prepared to oppose any attempt to penetrate into the country under his dominion by the easiest passes; but Earl Cornwallis contrived the appearance of a march towards Amboor, which completely deceived the Sultan; and then turning suddenly to the north, traversed the difficult pass of Muglee, without the enemy having power to offer the least obstruction, and arrived on the 20th of February on the table-land of the Mysore country. Two days afterwards the troops commenced their march towards the strong fortress of _Bangalore_. The following graphic description of the Fort of Bangalore is extracted from Colonel Mark Wilks’s History of the South of India:-- “The Fort of Bangalore, entirely rebuilt of strong masonry by Hyder and his son Tippoo, is nearly of an oval form, with round towers at proper intervals, and five powerful cavaliers, a _fausse-braye_, a good ditch and covered way without palisades, and some well-furnished places of arms; but the _glacis_ is imperfect in several places; no part was entirely destitute of the support of reciprocal fire, but in no part was there a perfect flanking defence. There were two gateways, one named the Mysore, the other the Delhi gate; the latter opposite the pettah, overbuilt by the projection of traverses, common to Indian forts. The pettah, or town, of great extent, to the north of the fort, was surrounded by an indifferent rampart, and excellent ditch, with an intermediate berm, if such it may be called, of nearly a hundred yards wide, planted with impenetrable and well-grown thorns; and this defence was only intermitted exactly opposite the fort, where there was a slight barrier, and an esplanade of insufficient extent. The pettah had several gates, protected by a sort of _flêche_ at the end of each _sortie_ outside the ditch. Neither the fort or pettah had drawbridges.”