His elder brother, Robert Yule, then in the 16th Lancers, took part in
that magnificent charge of his regiment at the battle of Aliwal (Jan. 28,
1846) which the Great Duke is said to have pronounced unsurpassed in
history. From particulars gleaned from his brother and others present in
the action, Henry Yule prepared a spirited sketch of the episode, which
was afterwards published as a coloured lithograph by M'Lean (Haymarket).
At the close of the war, Yule succeeded his friend Strachey as Executive
Engineer of the northern division of the Ganges Canal, with his
head-quarters at Roorkee, "the division which, being nearest the hills and
crossed by intermittent torrents of great breadth and great volume when in
flood, includes the most important and interesting engineering works."[32]
At Roorkee were the extensive engineering workshops connected with the
canal. Yule soon became so accustomed to the din as to be undisturbed by
the noise, but the unpunctuality and carelessness of the native workmen
sorely tried his patience, of which Nature had endowed him with but a
small reserve. Vexed with himself for letting temper so often get the
better of him, Yule's conscientious mind devised a characteristic remedy.
Each time that he lost his temper, he transferred a fine of two rupees
(then about five shillings) from his right to his left pocket. When about
to leave Roorkee, he devoted this accumulation of self-imposed fines to
the erection of a sun-dial, to teach the natives the value of time. The
late Sir James Caird, who told this legend of Roorkee as he heard it there
in 1880, used to add, with a humorous twinkle of his kindly eyes, "It was
a very handsome dial."[33]
From September, 1845, to March, 1847, Yule was much occupied
intermittently, in addition to his professional work, by service on a
Committee appointed by Government "to investigate the causes of the
unhealthiness which has existed at Kurnal, and other portions of the
country along the line of the Delhi Canal," and further, to report
"whether an injurious effect on the health of the people of the Doab is,
or is not, likely to be produced by the contemplated Ganges Canal."
"A very elaborate investigation was made by the Committee, directed
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.
