64 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
and that was its pretty, rustic hotel. The times of travel from London so fitted in, that thn walk from Ryde about Easter-time, began well before twilight, aril we reached Slhanklin 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 perfectly 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. H e 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
