In the spring of 1864, Yule took a spacious and delightful old villa, situated in the highest part of the Bagni di Lucca,[55] and commanding lovely views over the surrounding chestnut-clad hills and winding river.
Here he wrote much of what ultimately took form in Cathay and the Way Thither. It was this summer, too, that Yule commenced his investigations among the Venetian archives, and also visited the province of Friuli in pursuit of materials for the history of one of his old travellers, the Beato Odorico. At Verona—then still Austrian—he had the amusing experience of being arrested for sketching too near the fortifications. However, his captors had all the usual Austrian bonhomie and courtesy, and Yule experienced no real inconvenience. He was much more disturbed when, a day or two later, the old mother of one of his Venetian acquaintances insisted on embracing him on account of his supposed likeness to Garibaldi!
As winter approached, a warmer climate became necessary for Mrs. Yule, and the family proceeded to Sicily, landing at Messina in October, 1864. From this point, Yule made a very interesting excursion to the then little known group of the Lipari Islands, in the company of that eminent geologist, the late Robert Mallet, F.R.S., a most agreeable companion.
On Martinmas Day, the Yules reached the beautiful capital of Sicily, Palermo, which, though they knew it not, was to be their home—a very happy one—for nearly eleven years.
During the ensuing winter and spring, Yule continued the preparation of Cathay, but his appetite for work not being satisfied by this, he, when in London in 1865, volunteered to make an Index to the third decade of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, in exchange for a set of such volumes as he did not possess. That was long before any Index Society existed; but Yule had special and very strong views of his own as to what an Index should be, and he spared no labour to realise his ideal.[56] This proved a heavier 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. In after years, when serving on the Army Sanitary Committee at the India Office, Yule more than once quoted this experience as indicating that quarantine restrictions may, in some cases, have more value than British medical authority is usually willing to admit.
In 1867, on his return from London, Yule commenced systematic work on his long projected new edition of the Travels of Marco Polo. It was apparently in this year that the scheme first took definite form, but it had long been latent in his mind. The Public Libraries of Palermo afforded him much good material, whilst occasional visits to the Libraries of Venice, Florence, Paris, and London, opened other sources. But his most important channel of supply came from his very extensive private correspondence, extending to nearly all parts of Europe and many centres in Asia. His work brought him many new and valued friends, indeed too many to mention, but amongst whom, as belonging specially to this period, three honoured names must be recalled here: Commendatore (afterwards Baron) Cristoforo Negri, the large-hearted Founder and First President of the Geographical Society of Italy, from whom Yule received his first public recognition as a geographer, Commendatore Guglielmo Berchet (affectionately nicknamed il Bello e Buono), ever generous in learned help, who became a most dear and honoured friend, and the Hon. George P. Marsh, U.S. Envoy to the Court of Italy, a man, both as scholar and friend, unequalled in his nation, perhaps almost unique anywhere.
Those who only knew Yule in later years, may like some account of his daily life at this time. It was his custom to rise fairly early; in summer he sometimes went to bathe in the sea,[58] or for a walk before breakfast; more usually he would write until breakfast, which he preferred to have alone. After breakfast he looked through his notebooks, and before ten o’clock was usually walking rapidly to the library where his work lay. He would work there until two or three o’clock, when he returned home, read the Times, answered letters, received or paid visits, and then resumed work on his book, which he often continued long after the rest of the household were sleeping. Of course his family saw but little of him under these circumstances, but when he had got a chapter of Marco into shape, or struck out some new discovery of interest, he would carry it to his wife to read. She always took great interest in his work, and he had great faith in her literary instinct as a sound as well as sympathetic critic.
The first fruits of Yule’s Polo studies took the form of a review of Pauthier’s edition of Marco Polo, contributed to the Quarterly Review in 1868.