The necessities of the case have
required the repetition in the present work of the substance of some
notes already printed (but hardly published) in the other.
[2] Viz. Mr. Hugh Murray's. I mean no disrespect to Mr. T. Wright's
edition, but it is, and professes to be, scarcely other than
a reproduction of Marsden's, with abridgment of his notes.
[3] In the Quarterly Review for July, 1868.
[4] M. Nicolas Khanikoff.
[5] In the Preliminary Notices will be found new matter on the Personal
and Family History of the Traveller, illustrated by Documents; and a
more elaborate attempt than I have seen elsewhere to classify and
account for the different texts of the work, and to trace their mutual
relation.
As regards geographical elucidations, I may point to the explanation
of the name Gheluchelan (i. p. 58), to the discussion of the route
from Kerman to Hormuz, and the identification of the sites of Old
Hormuz, of Cobinan and Dogana, the establishment of the position
and continued existence of Keshm, the note on Pein and Charchan,
on Gog and Magog, on the geography of the route from Sindafu to
Carajan, on Anin and Coloman, on Mutafili, Cail, and Ely.
As regards historical illustrations, I would cite the notes regarding
the Queens Bolgana and Cocachin, on the Karaunahs, etc., on the
title of King of Bengal applied to the K. of Burma, and those
bearing upon the Malay and Abyssinian chronologies.
In the interpretation of outlandish phrases, I may refer to the notes
on Ondanique, Nono, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Keshican, Toscaol,
Bularguchi, Gat-paul, etc.
Among miscellaneous elucidations, to the disquisition on the Arbre
Sol or Sec in vol. i., and to that on Mediaeval Military Engines in
vol. ii.
In a variety of cases it has been necessary to refer to Eastern
languages for pertinent elucidations or etymologies. The editor would,
however, be sorry to fall under the ban of the mediaeval adage:
"Vir qui docet quod non sapit
Definitur Bestia!"
and may as well reprint here what was written in the Preface to
Cathay:
I am painfully sensible that in regard to many subjects dealt with in
the following pages, nothing can make up for the want of genuine
Oriental learning. A fair familiarity with Hindustani for many years,
and some reminiscences of elementary Persian, have been useful in
their degree; but it is probable that they may sometimes also have led
me astray, as such slender lights are apt to do.
TO HENRY YULE.
[Illustration]
Until you raised dead monarchs from the mould
And built again the domes of Xanadu,
I lay in evil case, and never knew
The glamour of that ancient story told
By good Ser Marco in his prison-hold.
But now I sit upon a throne and view
The Orient at my feet, and take of you
And Marco tribute from the realms of old.
If I am joyous, deem me not o'er bold;
If I am grateful, deem me not untrue;
For you have given me beauties to behold,
Delight to win, and fancies to pursue,
Fairer than all the jewelry and gold
Of Kublai on his throne in Cambalu.
E. C. BABER.
20th July, 1884.
MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE.
Henry Yule was the youngest son of Major William Yule, by his first wife,
Elizabeth Paterson, and was born at Inveresk, in Midlothian, on 1st May,
1820. He was named after an aunt who, like Miss Ferrier's immortal
heroine, owned a man's name.
On his father's side he came of a hardy agricultural stock,[1] improved by
a graft from that highly-cultured tree, Rose of Kilravock.[2] Through his
mother, a somewhat prosaic person herself, he inherited strains from
Huguenot and Highland ancestry. There were recognisable traces of all
these elements in Henry Yule, and as was well said by one of his oldest
friends: "He was one of those curious racial compounds one finds on the
east side of Scotland, in whom the hard Teutonic grit is sweetened by the
artistic spirit of the more genial Celt."[3] His father, an officer of the
Bengal army (born 1764, died 1839), was a man of cultivated tastes and
enlightened mind, a good Persian and Arabic scholar, and possessed of much
miscellaneous Oriental learning. During the latter years of his career in
India, he served successively as Assistant Resident at the (then
independent) courts of Lucknow[4] and Delhi. In the latter office his
chief was the noble Ouchterlony. William Yule, together with his younger
brother Udny,[5] returned home in 1806. "A recollection of their voyage
was that they hailed an outward bound ship, somewhere off the Cape,
through the trumpet: 'What news?' Answer: 'The King's mad, and Humfrey's
beat Mendoza' (two celebrated prize-fighters and often matched). 'Nothing
more?' 'Yes, Bonaparty's made his Mother King of Holland!'
"Before his retirement, William Yule was offered the Lieut.-Governorship
of St. Helena. Two of the detailed privileges of the office were residence
at Longwood (afterwards the house of Napoleon), and the use of a certain
number of the Company's slaves. Major Yule, who was a strong supporter of
the anti-slavery cause till its triumph in 1834, often recalled both of
these offers with amusement."[6]
William Yule was a man of generous chivalrous nature, who took large views
of life, apt to be unfairly stigmatised as Radical in the narrow Tory
reaction that prevailed in Scotland during the early years of the 19th
century.[7] Devoid of literary ambition, he wrote much for his private
pleasure, and his knowledge and library (rich in Persian and Arabic MSS.)
were always placed freely at the service of his friends and
correspondents, some of whom, such as Major C. Stewart and Mr. William
Erskine, were more given to publication than himself. He never travelled
without a little 8vo MS. of Hafiz, which often lay under his pillow.