pecially his strong sense of right
and wrong, made him both admired and respected.... Yule was not a
scientific engineer, though he had a good general knowledge of the
different branches of his profession; his natural capacity lay rather in
varied knowledge, combined with a strong understanding and an excellent
memory, and also a peculiar power as a draughtsman, which proved of great
value in after life.... Those were nearly the last days of the old
_regime_, of the orthodox double sap and cylindrical pontoons, when
Pasley's genius had been leading to new ideas, and when Lintorn Simmons'
power, G. Leach's energy, W. Jervois' skill, and R. Tylden's talent were
developing under the wise example of Henry Harness."[22]

In the Royal Engineer mess of those days (the present anteroom), the
portrait of Henry Yule now faces that of his first chief, Sir Henry
Harness. General Collinson said that the pictures appeared to eye each
other as if the subjects were continuing one of those friendly disputes in
which they so often engaged.[23]

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 s