Marco, Nicolo, Maffeo,
Odoric of Pordenone,
Ibn Batuta, Marignolli,
Benedict de Goes--'Seeking
Lost Cathay and finding Heaven.'
Many more whose lives he cherished
With the piety of learning;
Fading records, buried pages,
Failing lights and fires forgotten,
By his energy recovered,
By his eloquence re-kindled.
'Moriturus vos saluto'
Breathes his last the dying scholar,
And the far off ages answer:
_Immortales te salutant_. D. M."
The same idea had been previously embodied, in very felicitous language,
by the late General Sir William Lockhart, in a letter which that noble
soldier addressed to the present writer a few days after Yule's death. And
Yule himself would have taken pleasure in the idea of those meetings with
his old travellers, which seemed so certain to his surviving friends.[78]
He rests in the old cemetery at Tunbridge Wells, with his second wife, as
he had directed. A great gathering of friends attended the first part of
the burial service which was held in London on 3rd January, 1890. Amongst
those present were witnesses of every stage of his career, from his boyish
days at the High School of Edinburgh downwards. His daughter, of course,
was there, led by the faithful, peerless friend who was so soon to follow
him into the Undiscovered Country.[79] She and his youngest nephew, with
two cousins and a few old friends, followed his remains over the snow to
the graveside. The epitaph subsequently inscribed on the tomb was penned
by Yule himself, but is by no means representative of his powers in a kind
of composition in which he had so often excelled in the service of others.
As a composer of epitaphs and other monumental inscriptions few of our
time have surpassed, if any have equalled him, in his best efforts.
SIR GEORGE UDNY YULE, C.B., K.C.S.I.[80]
George Udny Yule, born at Inveresk in 1813, passed through Haileybury into
the Bengal Civil Service, which he entered at the age of 18 years. For
twenty-five years his work lay in Eastern Bengal. He gradually became
known to the Government for his activity and good sense, but won a far
wider reputation as a mighty hunter, alike with hog-spear and double
barrel. By 1856 the roll of his slain tigers exceeded four hundred, some
of them of special fame; after that he continued slaying his tigers, but
ceased to count them. For some years he and a few friends used annually to
visit the plains of the Brahmaput
|