64
MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
and that was its pretty, rustic hotel. The times of
travel from London so fitted in, that the walk from
Ryde about Easier time began well before twilight,
and we reached .Shatiklin not too late to be taken
in and to thoroughly enjoy the moonlit evening.
Strickland was a strong swimmer, but he got into
some difficulty next morning owing to the surf and
undercurrents at the place where he entered the sea.
He returned safely to shore, to my great relief, but
much tired from long battling with the water.
His end was tragic. It occurred in North America,
when winter had just set in, near some well-known
watering-place whose name I forget, separated by a
low range of hills from another watering place about
sixteen miles off. The road between the two was per¬
fectly simple and easy in summer, but not so in the
snowdrifts and darkness of winter. Strickland would
attempt it, though much was said to dissuade him :
he never reached his destination. A relief party
tracked his wanderings. He seemed to have acted
as one demented by the hardship, for he had stripped
off his clothes and thrown them away, one after the
other, even his boots, so that his dead body was
almost wholly undressed. That was the story I
heard from two persons.
On returning to Cambridge after the first long
vacation, I was put steadily to mathematical work,
coming at length under that most distinguished
Cambridge tutor, William Hopkins (1793-1866),
mathematician and geologist. He kindly took a
good deal of interest in me and gave me much
encouragement, but the hopes he fostered were
shattered by serious illness, which precluded severe