cousin, Major (afterwards General) Patrick Yule, R.E.[25] He was under
orders "to stop at Aden (then recently acquired), to report on the water
supply, and to deliver a set of meteorological and magnetic instruments
for starting an observatory there. The overland journey then really meant
so; tramping across the desert to Suez with camels and Arabs, a proceeding
not conducive to the preservation of delicate instruments; and on arriving
at Aden he found that the intended observer was dead, the observatory not
commenced, and the instruments all broken. There was thus nothing left for
him but to go on at once" to Calcutta,[26] where he arrived at the end of
1840.

His first service lay in the then wild Khasia Hills, whither he was
detached for the purpose of devising means for the transport of the local
coal to the plains. In spite of the depressing character of the climate
(Cherrapunjee boasts the highest rainfall on record), Yule thoroughly
enjoyed himself, and always looked back with special pleasure on the time
he spent here. He was unsuccessful in the object of his mission, the
obstacles to cheap transport offered by the dense forests and mighty
precipices proving insurmountable, but he gathered a wealth of interesting
observations on the country and people, a very primitive Mongolian race,
which he subsequently embodied in two excellent and most interesting
papers (the first he ever published).[27]

In the following year, 1842, Yule was transferred to the irrigation canals
of the north-west with head-quarters at Kurnaul. Here he had for chief
Captain (afterwards General Sir William) Baker, who became his dearest and
most steadfast friend. Early in 1843 Yule had his first experience of
field service. The death without heir of the Khytul Rajah, followed by the
refusal of his family to surrender the place to the native troops sent to
receive it, obliged Government to send a larger force against it, and the