y developed into the great Department of Public Works.

As related by Yule, whilst Baker "held this appointment, Lord Dalhousie
was in the habit of making use of his advice in a great variety of matters
connected with Public Works projects and questions, but which had nothing
to do with guaranteed railways, there being at that time no officer
attached to the Government of India, whose proper duty it was to deal with
such questions. In August, 1854, the Government of India sent home to the
Court of Directors a despatch and a series of minutes by the
Governor-General and his Council, in which the constitution of the Public
Works Department as a separate branch of administration, both in the local
governments and the government of India itself, was urged on a detailed
plan."

In this communication Lord Dalhousie stated his desire to appoint Major
Baker to the projected office of Secretary for the Department of Public
Works. In the spring of 1855 these recommendations were carried out by the
creation of the Department, 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 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