It Was In This Room That Yule, Becher, Collinson, And Other Young R.E.'s,
Profiting By The Temporary Absence Of The Austere Colonel Pasley, Acted
Some Plays, Including Pizarro.
Yule bore the humble part of one of the
Peruvian Mob in this performance, of which he has left a droll
account.[24]
On the completion of his year at Chatham, Yule prepared to sail for India,
but first went to take leave of his relative, General White. An accident
prolonged his stay, and before he left he had proposed to and been refused
by his cousin Annie. This occurrence, his first check, seems to have cast
rather a gloom over his start for India. He went by the then newly-opened
Overland Route, visiting Portugal, stopping at Gibraltar to see his
cousin, Major (afterwards General) Patrick Yule, R.E.[25] He was under
orders "to stop at Aden (then recently acquired), to report on the water
supply, and to deliver a set of meteorological and magnetic instruments
for starting an observatory there. The overland journey then really meant
so; tramping across the desert to Suez with camels and Arabs, a proceeding
not conducive to the preservation of delicate instruments; and on arriving
at Aden he found that the intended observer was dead, the observatory not
commenced, and the instruments all broken. There was thus nothing left for
him but to go on at once" to Calcutta,[26] where he arrived at the end of
1840.
His first service lay in the then wild Khasia Hills, whither he was
detached for the purpose of devising means for the transport of the local
coal to the plains. In spite of the depressing character of the climate
(Cherrapunjee boasts the highest rainfall on record), Yule thoroughly
enjoyed himself, and always looked back with special pleasure on the time
he spent here. He was unsuccessful in the object of his mission, the
obstacles to cheap transport offered by the dense forests and mighty
precipices proving insurmountable, but he gathered a wealth of interesting
observations on the country and people, a very primitive Mongolian race,
which he subsequently embodied in two excellent and most interesting
papers (the first he ever published).[27]
In the following year, 1842, Yule was transferred to the irrigation canals
of the north-west with head-quarters at Kurnaul. Here he had for chief
Captain (afterwards General Sir William) Baker, who became his dearest and
most steadfast friend. Early in 1843 Yule had his first experience of
field service. The death without heir of the Khytul Rajah, followed by the
refusal of his family to surrender the place to the native troops sent to
receive it, obliged Government to send a larger force against it, and the
canal officers were ordered to join this. Yule was detailed to serve under
Captain Robert Napier (afterwards F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala). Their
immediate duty was to mark out the route for a night march of the troops,
barring access to all side roads, and neither officer having then had any
experience of war, they performed the duty "with all the elaborate care of
novices." Suddenly there was an alarm, a light detected, and a night
attack awaited, when the danger resolved itself into Clerk Sahib's
khansamah with welcome hot coffee![28] Their hopes were disappointed,
there was no fighting, and the Fort of Khytul was found deserted by the
enemy.
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