On his return to
Calcutta, Yule was appointed Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways at
Head-quarters. In this post he had for chief his old friend Baker, who had
in 1851 been appointed by the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, Consulting
Engineer for Railways to Government. The office owed its existence to the
recently initiated great experiment of railway construction under
Government guarantee.
The subject was new to Yule, "and therefore called for hard and anxious
labour. He, however, turned his strong sense and unbiased view to the
general question of railway communication in India, with the result that
he became a vigorous supporter of the idea of narrow gauge and cheap lines
in the parts of that country outside of the main trunk lines of
traffic."[36]
The influence of Yule, and that of his intimate friends and ultimate
successors in office, Colonels R. Strachey and Dickens, led to the
adoption of the narrow (metre) gauge over a great part of India. Of this
matter more will be said further on; it is sufficient at this stage to
note that it was occupying Yule's thoughts, and that he had already taken
up the position in this question that he thereafter maintained through
life. The office of Consulting Engineer to Government for Railways
ultimately developed into the great Department of Public Works.
As related by Yule, whilst Baker "held this appointment, Lord Dalhousie
was in the habit of making use of his advice in a great variety of matters
connected with Public Works projects and questions, but which had nothing
to do with guaranteed railways, there being at that time no officer
attached to the Government of India, whose proper duty it was to deal with
such questions. In August, 1854, the Government of India sent home to the
Court of Directors a despatch and a series of minutes by the
Governor-General and his Council, in which the constitution of the Public
Works Department as a separate branch of administration, both in the local
governments and the government of India itself, was urged on a detailed
plan."
In this communication Lord Dalhousie stated his desire to appoint Major
Baker to the projected office of Secretary for the Department of Public
Works. In the spring of 1855 these recommendations were carried out by the
creation of the Department, with Baker as Secretary and Yule as Under
Secretary for Public Works.
Meanwhile Yule's services were called to a very different field, but
without his vacating his new appointment, which he was allowed to retain.
Not long after the conclusion of the second Burmese War, the King of Burma
sent a friendly mission to the Governor-General, and in 1855 a return
Embassy was despatched to the Court of Ava, under Colonel Arthur Phayre,
with Henry Yule as Secretary, an appointment the latter owed as much to
Lord Dalhousie's personal wish as to Phayre's good-will. The result of
this employment was Yule's first geographical book, a large volume
entitled Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855, originally printed in
India, but subsequently re-issued in an embellished form at home (see over
leaf). To the end of his life, Yule looked back to this "social progress
up the Irawady, with its many quaint and pleasant memories, as to a bright
and joyous holiday."[37] It was a delight to him to work under Phayre,
whose noble and lovable character he had already learned to appreciate two
years before in Pegu. Then, too, Yule has spoken of the intense relief it
was to escape from the monotonous scenery and depressing conditions of
official life in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule,
in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its
fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to
find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's
presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced
exactly the same sense of relief in passing from India to China.
Yule's work on Burma was largely illustrated by his own sketches. One of
these represents the King's reception of the Embassy, and another, the
King on his throne. The originals were executed by Yule's ready pencil,
surreptitiously within his cocked hat, during the audience.
From the latter sketch Yule had a small oil-painting executed under his
direction by a German artist, then resident in Calcutta, which he gave to
Lord Dalhousie.[38]
The Government of India marked their approval of the Embassy by an unusual
concession. Each of the members of the mission received a souvenir of the
expedition. To Yule was given a very beautiful and elaborately chased
small bowl, of nearly pure gold, bearing the signs of the Zodiac in
relief.[39]
On his return to Calcutta, Yule threw himself heart and soul into the work
of his new appointment in the Public Works Department. The nature of his
work, the novelty and variety of the projects and problems with which this
new branch of the service had to deal, brought Yule into constant, and
eventually very intimate association with Lord Dalhousie, whom he
accompanied on some of his tours of inspection. The two men thoroughly
appreciated each other, and, from first to last, Yule experienced the
greatest kindness from Lord Dalhousie. In this intimacy, no doubt the fact
of being what French soldiers call pays added something to the warmth of
their mutual regard: their forefathers came from the same airt, and
neither was unmindful of the circumstance. It is much to be regretted that
Yule preserved no sketch of Lord Dalhousie, nor written record of his
intercourse with him, but the following lines show some part of what he
thought:
