The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 · Chapter 4Part 4
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Baker, whilst large-minded in great matters, was extremely conventional in small ones, and Yule must sometimes have tried his feelings in this respect. The particulars of one such tragic occurrence have survived. Yule, who was colour-blind,[46] and in early life whimsically obstinate in maintaining his own view of colours, had selected some cloth for trousers undeterred by his tailor’s timid remonstrance of “Not quite your usual taste, sir.” The result was that the Under-Secretary to Government startled official Calcutta by appearing in brilliant claret-coloured raiment. Baker remonstrated: “Claret-colour! Nonsense, my trousers are silver grey,” said Yule, and entirely declined to be convinced. “I think I did convince him at last,” said Baker with some pride, when long after telling the story to the present writer. “And then he gave them up?” “Oh, no,” said Sir William ruefully, “he wore those claret-coloured trousers to the very end.” That episode probably belonged to the Dalhousie period.
When Yule resumed work in the Secretariat at Calcutta at the close of the Mutiny, the inevitable arrears of work were enormous. This may be the proper place to notice more fully his action with respect to the choice of gauge for Indian railways already adverted to in brief. As we have seen, his own convictions led to the adoption of the metre gauge over a great part of India. This policy had great disadvantages not at first foreseen, and has since been greatly modified. In justice to Yule, however, it should be remembered that the conditions and requirements of India have largely altered, alike through the extraordinary growth of the Indian export, especially the grain, trade, and the development of new necessities for Imperial defence. These new features, however, did but accentuate defects inherent in the system, but which only prolonged practical experience made fully apparent.
At the outset the supporters of the narrow gauge seemed to have the stronger position, as they were able to show that the cost was much less, the rails employed being only about ⅔rds the weight of those required by the broad gauge, and many other subsidiary expenses also proportionally less. On the other hand, as time passed and practical experience was gained, its opponents were able to make an even stronger case against the narrow gauge. The initial expenses were undoubtedly less, but the durability was also less. Thus much of the original saving was lost in the greater cost of maintenance, whilst the small carrying capacity of the rolling stock and loss of time and labour in shifting goods at every break of gauge, were further serious causes of waste, which the internal commercial development of India daily made more apparent. Strategic needs also were clamant against the dangers of the narrow gauge in any general scheme of Indian defence. Yule’s connection with the Public Works Department had long ceased ere the question of the gauges reached its most acute stage, but his interest and indirect participation in the conflict survived. In this matter a certain parental tenderness for a scheme which he had helped to originate, combined with his warm friendship for some of the principal supporters of the narrow gauge, seem to have influenced his views more than he himself was aware. Certainly his judgment in this matter was not impartial, although, as always in his case, it was absolutely sincere and not consciously biased.
In reference to Yule’s services in the period following the Mutiny, Lord Canning’s subsequent Minute of 1862 may here be fitly quoted. In this the Governor-General writes: “I have long ago recorded my opinion of the value of his services in 1858 and 1859, when with a crippled and overtaxed staff of Engineer officers, many of them young and inexperienced, the G.-G. had to provide rapidly for the accommodation of a vast English army, often in districts hitherto little known, and in which the authority of the Government was barely established, and always under circumstances of difficulty and urgency. I desire to repeat that the Queen’s army in India was then greatly indebted to Lieut.-Colonel Yule’s judgment, earnestness, and ability; and this to an extent very imperfectly understood by many of the officers who held commands in that army.
“Of the manner in which the more usual duties of his office have been discharged it is unnecessary for me to speak. It is, I believe, known and appreciated as well by the Home Government as by the Governor-General in Council.”
In the spring of 1859 Yule felt the urgent need of a rest, and took the, at that time, most unusual step of coming home on three months’ leave, which as the voyage then occupied a month each way, left him only one month at home. He was accompanied by his elder brother George, who had not been out of India for thirty years. The visit home of the two brothers was as bright and pleasant as it was brief, but does not call for further notice.
In 1860, Yule’s health having again suffered, he took short leave to Java. His journal of this tour is very interesting, but space does not admit of quotation here. He embodied some of the results of his observations in a lecture he delivered on his return to Calcutta.
During these latter years of his service in India, Yule owed much happiness to the appreciative friendship of Lord Canning and the ready sympathy of Lady Canning. If he shared their tours in an official capacity, the intercourse was much more than official. The noble character of Lady Canning won from Yule such wholehearted chivalrous devotion as, probably, he felt for no other friend save, perhaps in after days, Sir Bartle Frere. And when her health failed, it was to Yule’s special care that Lord Canning entrusted his wife during a tour in the Hills. Lady Canning was known to be very homesick, and one day as the party came in sight of some ilexes (the evergreen oak), Yule sought to cheer her by calling out pleasantly: “Look, Lady Canning! There are oaks!” “No, no, Yule, not oaks,” cried Sir C. B. “They are (solemnly) Ibexes.” “No, not Ibexes, Sir C., you mean Silexes,” cried Capt. ——, the A.D.C.; Lady Canning and Yule the while almost choking with laughter.
On another and later occasion, when the Governor-General’s camp was peculiarly dull and stagnant, every one yawning and grumbling, Yule effected a temporary diversion by pretending to tap the telegraph wires, and circulating through camp, what purported to be, the usual telegraphic abstract of news brought to Bombay by the latest English mail. The news was of the most astounding character, with just enough air of probability, in minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was all he could wish—or rather more—and there was a general flutter in the camp. Of course the Governor-General and one or two others were in the secret, and mightily relished the diversion. But this pleasant and cheering intercourse was drawing to its mournful close. On her way back from Darjeeling, in November, 1861, Lady Canning (not then in Yule’s care) was unavoidably exposed to the malaria of a specially unhealthy season. A few days’ illness followed, and on 18th November, 1861, she passed calmly to
“That remaining rest where night and tears are o’er.”[47]
It was to Yule that Lord Canning turned in the first anguish of his loss, and on this faithful friend devolved the sad privilege of preparing her last resting-place. This may be told in the touching words of Lord Canning’s letter to his only sister, written on the day of Lady Canning’s burial, in the private garden at Barrackpoor[48]:—
“The funeral is over, and my own darling lies buried in a spot which I am sure she would have chosen of all others.... From the grave can be seen the embanked walk leading from the house to the river’s edge, which she made as a landing-place three years ago, and from within 3 or 4 paces of the grave there is a glimpse of the terrace-garden and its balustrades, which she made near the house, and of the part of the grounds with which she most occupied herself.... I left Calcutta yesterday ... and on arriving here, went to look at the precise spot chosen for the grave. I could see by the clear full moon ... that it was exactly right. Yule was there superintending the workmen, and before daylight this morning a solid masonry vault had been completely finished.
“Bowie [Military Secretary] and Yule have done all this for me. It has all been settled since my poor darling died. She liked Yule. They used to discuss together her projects of improvement for this place, architecture, gardening, the Cawnpore monument, etc., and they generally agreed. He knew her tastes well....”
The coffin, brought on a gun-carriage from Calcutta, “was carried by twelve soldiers of the 6th Regiment (Queen’s), the A.D.C.’s bearing the pall. There were no hired men or ordinary funeral attendants of any kind at any part of the ceremony, and no lookers-on.... Yule was the only person not of the household staff. Had others who had asked” to attend “been allowed to do so, the numbers would have been far too large.
“On coming near the end of the terrace walk I saw that the turf between the walk and the grave, and for several yards all round the grave, was strewed thick with palm branches and bright fresh-gathered flowers—quite a thick carpet. It was a little matter, but so exactly what she would have thought of.”[49]
And, therefore, Yule thought of this for her! He also recorded the scene two days later in some graceful and touching lines, privately printed, from which the following may be quoted:
“When night lowered black, and the circling shroud
Of storm rolled near, and stout hearts learned dismay;
Not Hers! To her tried Lord a Light and Stay
Even in the Earthquake and the palpable cloud
Of those dark months; and when a fickle crowd
Panted for blood and pelted wrath and scorn
On him she loved, her courage never stooped:
But when the clouds were driven, and the day
Poured Hope and glorious Sunshine, she who had borne,
The night with such strong Heart, withered and drooped,
Our queenly lily, and smiling passed away.
Now! let no fouling touch profane her clay,
Nor odious pomps and funeral tinsels mar
Our grief. But from our England’s cannon car
Let England’s soldiers bear her to the tomb
Prepared by loving hands. Before her bier
Scatter victorious palms; let Rose’s bloom
Carpet its passage....”
Yule’s deep sympathy in this time of sorrow strengthened the friendship Lord Canning had long felt for him, and when the time approached for the Governor-General to vacate his high office, he invited Yule, who was very weary of India, to accompany him home, where his influence would secure Yule congenial employment. Yule’s weariness of India at this time was extreme. Moreover, after serving under such leaders as Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning, and winning their full confidence and friendship, it was almost repugnant to him to begin afresh with new men and probably new measures, with which he might not be in accord. Indeed, some little clouds were already visible on the horizon. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that Yule, under an impulse of lassitude and impatience, when accepting Lord Canning’s offer, also ‘burnt his boats’ by sending in his resignation of the service. This decision Yule took against the earnest advice of his anxious and devoted wife, and for a time the results justified all her misgivings. She knew well, from past experience, how soon Yule wearied in the absence of compulsory employment. And in the event of the life in England not suiting him, for even Lord Canning’s good-will might not secure perfectly congenial employment for his talents, she knew well that his health and spirits would be seriously affected. She, therefore, with affectionate solicitude, urged that he should adopt the course previously followed by his friend Baker, that is, come home on furlough, and only send in his resignation after he saw clearly what his prospects of home employment were, and what he himself wished in the matter.
Lord Canning and Yule left Calcutta late in March, 1862; at Malta they parted never to meet again in this world. Lord Canning proceeded to England, and Yule joined his wife and child in Rome. Only a few weeks later, at Florence, came as a thunderclap the announcement of Lord Canning’s unexpected death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present writer remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule’s deep anguish, not assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the loss of a most noble and magnanimous friend, a statesman whose true greatness was, both then and since, most imperfectly realised by the country for which he had worn himself out.[50] Shortly after Yule went to England,[51] where he was cordially received by Lord Canning’s representatives, who gave him a touching remembrance of his lost friend, in the shape of the silver travelling candlesticks, which had habitually stood on Lord Canning’s writing-table.[52] But his offer to write Lord Canning’s Life had no result, as the relatives, following the then recent example of the Hastings family, in the case of another great Governor-General, refused to revive discussion by the publication of any Memoir.
Nor did Yule find any suitable opening for employment in England, so after two or three months spent in visiting old friends, he rejoined his family in the Black Forest, where he sought occupation in renewing his knowledge of German. But it must be confessed that his mood both then and for long after was neither happy nor wholesome. The winter of 1862 was spent somewhat listlessly, partly in Germany and partly at the Hôtel des Bergues, Geneva, where his old acquaintance Colonel Tronchin was hospitably ready to open all doors. The picturesque figure of John Ruskin also flits across the scene at this time. But Yule was unoccupied and restless, and could neither enjoy Mr. Ruskin’s criticism of his sketches nor the kindly hospitality of his Genevan hosts. Early in 1863 he made another fruitless visit to London, where he remained four or five months, but found no opening. Though unproductive of work, this year brought Yule official recognition of his services in the shape of the C.B., for which Lord Canning had long before recommended him.[53]
On rejoining his wife and child at Mornex in Savoy, Yule found the health of the former seriously impaired. During his absence, the kind and able English Doctor at Geneva had felt obliged to inform Mrs. Yule that she was suffering from disease of the heart, and that her life might end suddenly at any moment. Unwilling to add to Yule’s anxieties, she made all necessary arrangements, but did not communicate this intelligence until he had done all he wished and returned, when she broke it to him very gently. Up to this year Mrs. Yule, though not strong and often ailing, had not allowed herself to be considered an invalid, but from this date doctor’s orders left her no choice in the matter.[54]
About this time, Yule took in hand the first of his studies of mediæval travellers. His translation of the Travels of Friar Jordanus was probably commenced earlier; it was completed during the leisurely journey by carriage between Chambéry and Turin, and the Dedication to Sir Bartle Frere written during a brief halt at Genoa, from which place it is dated. Travelling slowly and pleasantly by vetturino along the Riviera di Levante, the family came to Spezzia, then little more than a quiet village. A chance encounter with agreeable residents disposed Yule favourably towards the place, and a few days later he opened negotiations for land to build a house! Most fortunately for himself and all concerned these fell through, and the family continued their journey to Tuscany, and settled for the winter in a long rambling house, with pleasant garden, at Pisa, where Yule was able to continue with advantage his researches into mediæval travel in the East. He paid frequent visits to Florence, where he had many pleasant acquaintances, not least among them Charles Lever (“Harry Lorrequer”), with whom acquaintance ripened into warm and enduring friendship. At Florence he also made the acquaintance of the celebrated Marchese Gino Capponi, and of many other Italian men of letters. To this winter of 1863–64 belongs also the commencement of a lasting friendship with the illustrious Italian historian, Villari, at that time holding an appointment at Pisa. Another agreeable acquaintance, though less intimate, was formed with John Ball, the well-known President of the Alpine Club, then resident at Pisa, and with many others, among whom the name of a very cultivated German scholar, H. Meyer, specially recurs to memory.
In the spring of 1864, Yule took a spacious and delightful old villa, situated in the highest part of the Bagni di Lucca,[55] and commanding lovely views over the surrounding chestnut-clad hills and winding river.
Here he wrote much of what ultimately took form in Cathay and the Way Thither. It was this summer, too, that Yule commenced his investigations among the Venetian archives, and also visited the province of Friuli in pursuit of materials for the history of one of his old travellers, the Beato Odorico. At Verona—then still Austrian—he had the amusing experience of being arrested for sketching too near the fortifications. However, his captors had all the usual Austrian bonhomie and courtesy, and Yule experienced no real inconvenience. He was much more disturbed when, a day or two later, the old mother of one of his Venetian acquaintances insisted on embracing him on account of his supposed likeness to Garibaldi!
As winter approached, a warmer climate became necessary for Mrs. Yule, and the family proceeded to Sicily, landing at Messina in October, 1864. From this point, Yule made a very interesting excursion to the then little known group of the Lipari Islands, in the company of that eminent geologist, the late Robert Mallet, F.R.S., a most agreeable companion.
On Martinmas Day, the Yules reached the beautiful capital of Sicily, Palermo, which, though they knew it not, was to be their home—a very happy one—for nearly eleven years.
During the ensuing winter and spring, Yule continued the preparation of Cathay, but his appetite for work not being satisfied by this, he, when in London in 1865, volunteered to make an Index to the third decade of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, in exchange for a set of such volumes as he did not possess. That was long before any Index Society existed; but Yule had special and very strong views of his own as to what an Index should be, and he spared no labour to realise his ideal.[56] This proved a heavier task than he had anticipated, and he got very weary before the Index was completed.
In the spring of 1866, Cathay and the Way Thither appeared, and at once took the high place which it has ever since retained. In the autumn of the same year Yule’s attention was momentarily turned in a very different direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that “every bullet has its billet,” she remained perfectly serene and undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events which probably helped to produce the outbreak, of which Yule contributed an account to The Times, and subsequently a more detailed one to the Quarterly Review.[57]
Yule had no more predilection for the Monastic Orders than most of his countrymen, but his sense of justice was shocked by the cruel incidence of the measure in many cases, and also by the harshness with which both it and the punishment of suspected insurgents was carried out. Cholera was prevalent in Italy that year, but Sicily, which had maintained stringent quarantine, entirely escaped until large bodies of troops were landed to quell the insurrection, when a devastating epidemic immediately ensued, and re-appeared in 1867. In after years, when serving on the Army Sanitary Committee at the India Office, Yule more than once quoted this experience as indicating that quarantine restrictions may, in some cases, have more value than British medical authority is usually willing to admit.
In 1867, on his return from London, Yule commenced systematic work on his long projected new edition of the Travels of Marco Polo. It was apparently in this year that the scheme first took definite form, but it had long been latent in his mind. The Public Libraries of Palermo afforded him much good material, whilst occasional visits to the Libraries of Venice, Florence, Paris, and London, opened other sources. But his most important channel of supply came from his very extensive private correspondence, extending to nearly all parts of Europe and many centres in Asia. His work brought him many new and valued friends, indeed too many to mention, but amongst whom, as belonging specially to this period, three honoured names must be recalled here: Commendatore (afterwards Baron) Cristoforo Negri, the large-hearted Founder and First President of the Geographical Society of Italy, from whom Yule received his first public recognition as a geographer, Commendatore Guglielmo Berchet (affectionately nicknamed il Bello e Buono), ever generous in learned help, who became a most dear and honoured friend, and the Hon. George P. Marsh, U.S. Envoy to the Court of Italy, a man, both as scholar and friend, unequalled in his nation, perhaps almost unique anywhere.
Those who only knew Yule in later years, may like some account of his daily life at this time. It was his custom to rise fairly early; in summer he sometimes went to bathe in the sea,[58] or for a walk before breakfast; more usually he would write until breakfast, which he preferred to have alone. After breakfast he looked through his notebooks, and before ten o’clock was usually walking rapidly to the library where his work lay. He would work there until two or three o’clock, when he returned home, read the Times, answered letters, received or paid visits, and then resumed work on his book, which he often continued long after the rest of the household were sleeping. Of course his family saw but little of him under these circumstances, but when he had got a chapter of Marco into shape, or struck out some new discovery of interest, he would carry it to his wife to read. She always took great interest in his work, and he had great faith in her literary instinct as a sound as well as sympathetic critic.
The first fruits of Yule’s Polo studies took the form of a review of Pauthier’s edition of Marco Polo, contributed to the Quarterly Review in 1868.
In 1870 the great work itself appeared, and received prompt generous recognition by the grant of the very beautiful gold medal of the Geographical Society of Italy,[59] followed in 1872 by the award of the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, while the Geographical and Asiatic Societies of Paris, the Geographical Societies of Italy and Berlin, the Academy of Bologna, and other learned bodies, enrolled him as an Honorary Member.
Reverting to 1869, we may note that Yule, when passing through Paris early in the spring, became acquainted, through his friend M. Charles Maunoir, with the admirable work of exploration lately performed by Lieut. Francis Garnier of the French Navy. It was a time of much political excitement in France, the eve of the famous Plébiscite, and the importance of Garnier’s work was not then recognised by his countrymen. Yule saw its value, and on arrival in London went straight to Sir Roderick Murchison, laid the facts before him, and suggested that no other traveller of the year had so good a claim to one of the two gold medals of the R.G.S. as this French naval Lieutenant. Sir Roderick was propitious, and accordingly in May the Patron’s medal was assigned to Garnier, who was touchingly grateful to Yule; whilst the French Minister of Marine marked his appreciation of Yule’s good offices by presenting him with the magnificent volumes commemorating the expedition.[60]
Yule was in Paris in 1871, immediately after the suppression of the Commune, and his letters gave interesting accounts of the extraordinary state of affairs then prevailing. In August, he served as President of the Geographical Section of the British Association at its Edinburgh meeting.
On his return to Palermo, he devoted himself specially to the geography of the Oxus region, and the result appeared next year in his introduction and notes to Wood’s Journey. Soon after his return to Palermo, he became greatly interested in the plans, about which he was consulted, of an English church, the gift to the English community of two of its oldest members, Messrs Ingham and Whitaker. Yule’s share in the enterprise gradually expanded, until he became a sort of volunteer clerk of the works, to the great benefit of his health, as this occupation during the next three years, whilst adding to his interests, also kept him longer in the open air than would otherwise have been the case. It was a real misfortune to Yule (and one of which he was himself at times conscious) that he had no taste for any out-of-door pursuits, neither for any form of natural science, nor for gardening, nor for any kind of sport nor games. Nor did he willingly ride.[61] He was always restless away from his books. There can be no doubt that want of sufficient air and exercise, reacting on an impaired liver, had much to do with Yule’s unsatisfactory state of health and frequent extreme depression. There was no lack of agreeable and intelligent society at Palermo (society that the present writer recalls with cordial regard), to which every winter brought pleasant temporary additions, both English and foreign, the best of whom generally sought Yule’s acquaintance. Old friends too were not wanting; many found their way to Palermo, and when such came, he was willing to show them hospitality and to take them excursions, and occasionally enjoyed these. But though the beautiful city and surrounding country were full of charm and interest, Yule was too much pre-occupied by his own special engrossing pursuits ever really to get the good of his surroundings, of which indeed he often seemed only half conscious.
By this time Yule had obtained, without ever having sought it, a distinct and, in some respects, quite unique position in geographical science. Although his Essay on the Geography of the Oxus Region (1872) received comparatively little public attention at home, it had yet made its mark once for all,[62] and from this time, if not earlier, Yule’s high authority in all questions of Central Asian geography was generally recognised. He had long ere this, almost unconsciously, laid the broad foundations of that “Yule method,” of which Baron von Richthofen has written so eloquently, declaring that not only in his own land, “but also in the literatures of France, Italy, Germany, and other countries, the powerful stimulating influence of the Yule method is visible.”[63] More than one writer has indeed boldly compared Central Asia before Yule to Central Africa before Livingstone!
Yule had wrought from sheer love of the work and without expectation of public recognition, and it was therefore a great surprise as well as gratification to him, to find that the demand for his Marco Polo was such as to justify the appearance of a second edition only a few years after the first. The preparation of this enlarged edition, with much other miscellaneous work (see subjoined bibliography), and the superintendence of the building of the church already named, kept him fully occupied for the next three years.
Amongst the parerga and miscellaneous occupations of Yule’s leisure hours in the period 1869–74, may be mentioned an interesting correspondence with Professor W. W. Skeat on the subject of William of Palerne and Sicilian examples of the Werwolf; the skilful analysis and exposure of Klaproth’s false geography;[64] the purchase and despatch of Sicilian seeds and young trees for use in the Punjab, at the request of the Indian Forestry Department; translations (prepared for friends) of tracts on the cultivation of Sumach and the collection of Manna as practised in Sicily; also a number of small services rendered to the South Kensington Museum, at the request of the late Sir Henry Cole. These latter included obtaining Italian and Sicilian bibliographic contributions to the Science and Art Department’s Catalogue of Books on Art, selecting architectural subjects to be photographed;[65] negotiating the purchase of the original drawings illustrative of Padre B. Gravina’s great work on the Cathedral of Monreale; and superintending the execution of a copy in mosaic of the large mosaic picture (in the Norman Palatine Chapel, Palermo,) of the Entry of our Lord into Jerusalem.
In the spring of 1875, just after the publication of the second edition of Marco Polo, Yule had to mourn the loss of his noble wife. He was absent from Sicily at the time, but returned a few hours after her death on 30th April. She had suffered for many years from a severe form of heart disease, but her end was perfect peace. She was laid to rest, amid touching tokens of both public and private sympathy, in the beautiful camposanto on Monte Pellegrino. What her loss was to Yule only his oldest and closest friends were in a position to realise. Long years of suffering had impaired neither the soundness of her judgment nor the sweetness, and even gaiety, of her happy, unselfish disposition. And in spirit, as even in appearance, she retained to the very last much of the radiance of her youth. Nor were her intellectual gifts less remarkable. Few who had once conversed with her ever forgot her, and certainly no one who had once known her intimately ever ceased to love her.[66]