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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
XXV iii
1820-28.
MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE
i
in Henry Yule, and as was well said by one of his oldest friends :
" He was one of those curious racial compounds one finds on
the east side of Scotland, in whom the hard Teutonic grit is
sweetened by the artistic spirit of the more genial Celt." 3 His
father, an officer of the Bengal army (born 1764, died 1839),
was a man of cultivated tastes and enlightened mind, a good
Persian and Arabic scholar, and possessed of much miscellaneous
Oriental learning. During the latter years of his career in India,
he served successively as Assistant Resident at the (then
independent) courts of Lucknow 4 and Delhi. In the latter
office his chief was the noble Ouchterlony. William Yule,
together with his younger brother Udny,5 returned home in
1806. " A recollection of their voyage was that they hailed an
outward bound ship, somewhere off the Cape, through the
trumpet : ` What news ?; Answer : ` The King's mad, and
Humfrey's beat Mendoza ' (two celebrated prize-fighters and
often matched). ` Nothing more ? ' ` Yes, Bonapärty's made
his Mother King of Holland ! '
" Before his retirement, William Yule was offered the Lieut.-
Governorship of St. Helena. Two of the detailed privileges of
the office were residence at Longwood (afterwards the house of
Napoleon), and the use of a certain number of the Company's
slaves. Major Yule, who was a strong supporter of the anti-
slavery cause till its triumph in 1834, often recalled both of these
offers with amusement." 6
3 General Collinson in Royal Engineers' Journal, Ist Feb. 1890. The gifted author of this excellent sketch himself passed away on 22nd April 1902.
4 The grave thoughtful face of William Yule was conspicuous in the picture of a Durbar (by an Italian artist, but not Zoffany), which long hung on the walls of the Nawab's palace at Lucknow. This picture disappeared during the Mutiny of 1857.
5 Colonel Udny Yule, C.B. " When he joined, his usual nomen and cognomen puzzled the staff-sergeant at Fort-William, and after much boggling on the cadet parade, the name was called out Whinly Wheel, which produced no reply, till some one at a venture shouted, ` sick in hospital.' " (Athenæum, 24th Sept. 1881. ) The ship which took Udny Yule to India was burnt at sea. After keeping himself afloat for several hours in the water, he was rescued by a passing ship and taken back to the Mauritius, whence, having lost everything but his cadetship, he made a fresh start for India, where he and William for many years had a common purse. Colonel Udny Yule commanded a brigade at the Siege of Cornelis (1811), which gave us Java, and afterwards acted as Resident under Sir Stamford Raffles. Forty-five years after the retrocession of Java, Henry Yule found the memory of his uncle still cherished there.
6 Article on the Oriental Section of the British Museum Library in Athenmzí,n, 24th Sept. 1881. Major Yule's Oriental Library was presented by his sons to the British Museum a few years after his death_
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