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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
AGE, 34-35.
AZISSION TO THE COURT OF AVA
xl v
.
1.
ment, 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 44eí
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
(
37 Extract from Preface to Ava, edition of 1858.
38 The present whereabouts of this picture is unknown to the writer. It was lent
to Yule in 1889 by Lord Dalhousie's surviving daughter (for whom he had strong
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