t four months were spent in hard work at Calcutta. In August, Yule
received orders to proceed to Singapore, and embarked on the 29th. His
duty was to report on the defences of the Straits Settlements, with a view
to their improvement. Yule's recommendations were sanctioned by
Government, but his journal bears witness to the prevalence then, as
since, of the penny-wise-pound-foolish system in our administration. On
all sides he was met by difficulties in obtaining sites for batteries,
etc., for which heavy compensation was demanded, when by the exercise of
reasonable foresight, the same might have been secured earlier at a
nominal price.

Yule's journal contains a very bright and pleasing picture of Singapore,
where he found that the majority of the European population "were
evidently, from their tongues, from benorth the Tweed, a circumstance
which seems to be true of four-fifths of the Singaporeans. Indeed, if I
taught geography, I should be inclined to class Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Dundee, and Singapore together as the four chief towns of Scotland."

Work on the defences kept Yule in Singapore and its neighbourhood until
the end of November, when he embarked for Bengal. On his return to
Calcutta, Yule was appointed Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways at
Head-quarters. In this post he had for chief his old friend Baker, who had
in 1851 been appointed by the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, Consulting
Engineer for Railways to Government. The office owed its existence to the
recently initiated great experiment of railway construction under
Government guarantee.

The subject was new to Yule, "and therefore called for hard and anxious
labour. He, however, turned his strong sense and unbiased view to the
general question of railway communication in India, with the result that
he became a vigorous supporter of the idea of narrow gauge and cheap lines
in the parts of that country outside of the main trunk lines of
traffic."[36]

The influence of Yule, and that of his intimate friends and ultimate
successors in office, Colonels R. Strachey and Dickens, led to the
adoption of the narrow (metre) gauge over a great part of India. Of this
matter more will be said further on; it is sufficient at this stage to
note that it was occupying Yule's thoughts, and that he had already taken
up the position in this question that he thereafter maintained through
life. The office of Consulting Engineer to Government for Railways
ultimatel