He always dwells in my memory as a sort of pythoness on her
tripod under the afflatus."[29]
During his Indian service, Yule had renewed and continued by letters his
suit to Miss White, and persistency prevailing at last, he soon after the
conclusion of the Khytul affair applied for leave to go home to be
married. He sailed from Bombay in May, 1843, and in September of the same
year was married, at Bath, to the gifted and large-hearted woman who, to
the end, remained the strongest and happiest influence in his life.[30]
Yule sailed for India with his wife in November 1843. The next two years
were employed chiefly in irrigation work, and do not call for special
note. They were very happy years, except in the one circumstance that the
climate having seriously affected his wife's health, and she having been
brought to death's door, partly by illness, but still more by the drastic
medical treatment of those days, she was imperatively ordered back to
England by the doctors, who forbade her return to India.
Having seen her on board ship, Yule returned to duty on the canals. The
close of that year, December, 1845, brought some variety to his work, as
the outbreak of the first Sikh War called nearly all the canal officers
into the field. "They went up to the front by long marches, passing
through no stations, and quite unable to obtain any news of what had
occurred, though on the 21st December the guns of Ferozshah were
distinctly heard in their camp at Pehoa, at a distance of 115 miles
south-east from the field, and some days later they came successively on
the fields of Moodkee and of Ferozshah itself, with all the recent traces
of battle. When the party of irrigation officers reached head-quarters, the
arrangements for attacking the Sikh army in its entrenchments at Sobraon
were beginning (though suspended till weeks later for the arrival of the
tardy siege guns), and the opposed forces were lying in sight of each
other."[31]
Yule's share in this campaign was limited to the sufficiently arduous task
of bridging the Sutlej for the advance of the British army. It is
characteristic of the man that for this reason he always abstained from
wearing his medal for the Sutlej campaign.
His elder brother, Robert Yule, then in the 16th Lancers, took part in
that magnificent charge of his regiment at the battle of Aliwal (Jan. 28,
1846) which the Great Duke is said to have pronounced unsurpassed in
history. From particulars gleaned from his brother and others present in
the action, Henry Yule prepared a spirited sketch of the episode, which
was afterwards published as a coloured lithograph by M'Lean (Haymarket).
At the close of the war, Yule succeeded his friend Strachey as Executive
Engineer of the northern division of the Ganges Canal, with his
head-quarters at Roorkee, "the division which, being nearest the hills and
crossed by intermittent torrents of great breadth and great volume when in
flood, includes the most important and interesting engineering works."[32]
At Roorkee were the extensive engineering workshops connected with the
canal. Yule soon became so accustomed to the din as to be undisturbed by
the noise, but the unpunctuality and carelessness of the native workmen
sorely tried his patience, of which Nature had endowed him with but a
small reserve. Vexed with himself for letting temper so often get the
better of him, Yule's conscientious mind devised a characteristic remedy.
Each time that he lost his temper, he transferred a fine of two rupees
(then about five shillings) from his right to his left pocket. When about
to leave Roorkee, he devoted this accumulation of self-imposed fines to
the erection of a sun-dial, to teach the natives the value of time. The
late Sir James Caird, who told this legend of Roorkee as he heard it there
in 1880, used to add, with a humorous twinkle of his kindly eyes, "It was
a very handsome dial."[33]
From September, 1845, to March, 1847, Yule was much occupied
intermittently, in addition to his professional work, by service on a
Committee appointed by Government "to investigate the causes of the
unhealthiness which has existed at Kurnal, and other portions of the
country along the line of the Delhi Canal," and further, to report
"whether an injurious effect on the health of the people of the Doab is,
or is not, likely to be produced by the contemplated Ganges Canal."
"A very elaborate investigation was made by the Committee, directed
principally to ascertaining what relation subsisted between certain
physical conditions of the different districts, and the liability of their
inhabitants to miasmatic fevers." The principal conclusion of the
Committee was, "that in the extensive epidemic of 1843, when Kurnaul
suffered so seriously ... the greater part of the evils observed had not
been the necessary and unavoidable results of canal irrigation, but were
due to interference with the natural drainage of the country, to the
saturation of stiff and retentive soils, and to natural disadvantages of
site, enhanced by excess of moisture. As regarded the Ganges Canal, they
were of opinion that, with due attention to drainage, improvement rather
than injury to the general health might be expected to follow the
introduction of canal irrigation."[34] In an unpublished note written
about 1889, Yule records his ultimate opinion as follows: "At this day,
and after the large experience afforded by the Ganges Canal, I feel sure
that a verdict so favourable to the sanitary results of canal irrigation
would not be given." Still the fact remains that the Ganges Canal has been
the source of unspeakable blessings to an immense population.
The Second Sikh War saw Yule again with the army in the field, and on 13th
Jan.
