Note 42 — THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO

Preface to Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava. Before these words were written, Yule had had the sorrow of losing his elder brother Robert, who had fallen in action before Delhi (19th June, 1857), whilst in command of his regiment, the 9th Lancers. Robert Abercromby Yule (born 1817) was a very noble character and a fine soldier. He had served with distinction in the campaigns in Afghanistan and the Sikh Wars, and was the author of an excellent brief treatise on Cavalry Tactics. He had a ready pencil and a happy turn for graceful verse. In prose his charming little allegorical tale for children, entitled The White Rhododendron, is as pure and graceful as the flower whose name it bears. Like both his brothers, he was at once chivalrous and devout, modest, impulsive, and impetuous. No officer was more beloved by his men than Robert Yule, and when some one met them carrying back his covered body from the field and enquired of the sergeant: “Who have you got there?” the reply was: “Colonel Yule, and better have lost half the regiment, sir.” It was in the chivalrous effort to extricate some exposed guns that he fell. Some one told afterwards that when asked to go to the rescue, he turned in the saddle, looked back wistfully on his regiment, well knowing the cost of such an enterprise, then gave the order to advance and charge. “No stone marks the spot where Yule went down, but no stone is needed to commemorate his valour” (Archibald Forbes, in Daily News, 8th Feb. 1876). At the time of his death Colonel R. A. Yule had been recommended for the C.B. His eldest son, Colonel J. H. Yule, C.B., distinguished himself in several recent campaigns (on the Burma-Chinese frontier, in Tirah, and South Africa).