1 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. 
that it was in itself important, as adding to the wealth of the 
world. It is difficult to think of him as ever asking “ Cui 
honor 
He has been accused of being deficient in a sense of literary 
proportion. The chief ground for the charge, and perhaps its 
excuse, may he found in his extraordinary fulness of knowledge, 
always at hand and ready to come forth. He used often to 
laugh at (what cynics might call) its “uselessness,” and could 
quite enjoy the charge from its humorous side. But his whole 
heart was in his subject as he wrote, and his conviction of the 
importance of his subject infects the reader, whose judgment at the 
same time is gained by the assurance which comes to him of the 
truthfulness and appositeness of the references, the comparative 
values of which, besides, have meanwhile been all worked out 
for him. 
It would be beyond the scope of this paper to institute a com- 
parison between our present knowledge of the physical geography, 
and of the condition in mediaeval times, of Central Asia, and what 
was available, under either head, in Colonel Yule’s younger days. 
It sounds like exaggeration to compare Central Asia before Yule, 
with Central Africa before Livingstone ; but the comparison is less 
far fetched than might be supposed. And even now, notwithstand- 
ing the extensive labours of recent explorers — often carrying Yule’s 
Marco Polo in their hands, and always revolving in their minds 
some problem he has suggested or illustrated — there remain vast 
tracts virtually unknown, and some great hydrographic questions 
only partially solved. And, as in respect of the geography, so too 
in the mediaeval history and archaeology ; the awakening of interest, 
and the direction of research, are largely due to the influence of 
these works. The sources of knowledge existed, indeed, before, but 
they were remote and unfamiliar, and above all undigested ; it 
needed his intuitive power of sifting and collating, separating the 
wheat from the chaff, while throwing a glamour of interest over all, 
to make such a subject at once intelligible and popular. I may be 
allowed to confirm this estimate by some words of Baron F. von 
Richthofen, who holds the very first rank in his own country as at 
once an enterprising and scientific traveller, and a man gifted with 
wide philosophic observation. Hot only in England, he says, 
