principally to ascertaining what relation subsisted between certain
physical conditions of the different districts, and the liability of their
inhabitants to miasmatic fevers." The principal conclusion of the
Committee was, "that in the extensive epidemic of 1843, when Kurnaul
suffered so seriously ... the greater part of the evils observed had not
been the necessary and unavoidable results of canal irrigation, but were
due to interference with the natural drainage of the country, to the
saturation of stiff and retentive soils, and to natural disadvantages of
site, enhanced by excess of moisture. As regarded the Ganges Canal, they
were of opinion that, with due attention to drainage, improvement rather
than injury to the general health might be expected to follow the
introduction of canal irrigation."[34] In an unpublished note written
about 1889, Yule records his ultimate opinion as follows: "At this day,
and after the large experience afforded by the Ganges Canal, I feel sure
that a verdict so favourable to the sanitary results of canal irrigation
would not be given." Still the fact remains that the Ganges Canal has been
the source of unspeakable blessings to an immense population.

The Second Sikh War saw Yule again with the army in the field, and on 13th
Jan. 1849, he was present at the dismal 'Victory' of Chillianwallah, of
which his most vivid recollection seemed to be the sudden apparition of
Henry Lawrence, fresh from London, but still clad in the legendary Afghan
cloak.

On the conclusion of the Punjab campaign, Yule, whose health had suffered,
took furlough and went home to his wife. For the next three years they
resided chiefly in Scotland, though paying occasional visits to the
Continent, and about 1850 Yule bought a house in Edinburgh. There he wrote
"The African Squadron vindicated" (a pamphlet which was afterwards
re-published in French), translated Schiller's _Kampf mit dem Drachen_ into
English verse, delivered Lectures on Fortification at the, now long
defunct, Scottish Naval and Military Academy, wrote on Tibet for his friend
Blackwood's Magazine, attended the 1850 Edinburgh Meeting of the British
Association, wrote his excellent lines, "On the Loss of the _Birkenhead_,"
and commenced his first serious study of Marco Polo (by whose wondrous
tale, however, he had already been captivated as a boy in his father's
library--in Marsden's edition probably). But the most noteworthy literary
result of these ha