Task than he had anticipated, and he got very weary
before the Index was completed.
In the spring of 1866, Cathay and the Way Thither appeared, and at once
took the high place which it has ever since retained. In the autumn of the
same year Yule's attention was momentarily turned in a very different
direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the
bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some
time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that
"every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene and
undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the
suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events which probably
helped to produce the outbreak, of which Yule contributed an account to
The Times, and subsequently a more detailed one to the Quarterly
Review.[57]
Yule had no more predilection for the Monastic Orders than most of his
countrymen, but his sense of justice was shocked by the cruel incidence of
the measure in many cases, and also by the harshness with which both it
and the punishment of suspected insurgents was carried out. Cholera was
prevalent in Italy that year, but Sicily, which had maintained stringent
quarantine, entirely escaped until large bodies of troops were landed to
quell the insurrection, when a devastating epidemic immediately ensued,
and re-appeared in 1867.
