CRUISE OF THE STEAM LAUNCH 173 



It was in 1879 that a new feature was added The cruise 

 to the Highland life : a steam launch, called the steam 

 Purgle, the Styrian corruption of Walpurga, after 

 a friend to be hereafter mentioned. ' The steam 

 launch goes,' Fleeming wrote. ' I wish you had 

 been present to describe two scenes of which 

 she has been the occasion already : one during 

 which the population of Ullapool, to a baby, 

 was harnessed to her hurrahing — and the other 

 in which the same population sat with its legs 

 over a little pier, watching Frewen and Bernie 

 getting up steam for the first time.' The Purgle 

 was got with educational intent ; and it served 

 its purpose so well, and the boys knew their busi- 

 ness so practically, that when the summer was 

 at an end, Fleeming, Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen the 

 engineer, Bernard the stoker, and Kenneth Robert- 

 son a Highland seaman, set forth in her to make 

 the passage south. The first morning they got 

 from Loch Broom into Gruinard bay, where they 

 lunched upon an island ; but the wind blowing 

 up in the afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was 

 found impossible to beat to sea ; and very much 

 in the situation of castaways upon an unknown 

 coast, the party landed at the mouth of 

 Gruinard river. A shooting lodge was spied 

 among the trees ; there Fleeming went ; and 

 though the master, Mr. Murray, was from home, 

 though the two Jenkin boys were of course as 



