MEMOIR 
35 
celebrated buffalo hunter, Joe Cooper, who helped him to 
get into touch with the blacks. Another mighty hunter, 
Paddy Cahill, accompanied him to Bathurst Island as also 
among the Kakadu and other tribes of the adjacent parts of 
the Continent. Thus his wanderings led him far from beaten 
tracks, as testify the pages of Native Tribes of the Northern 
Territory of Australia (Macmillan, 1914), so remarkable for 
their descriptions of the customs of hitherto unknown peoples 
and for the illustrations of their dances, weapons, and graphic 
efforts. In a letter to me written after his return to Melbourne, 
when he is busy putting his notes together, he regrets that so 
much of his time was taken up with departmental work, and 
that an accident—it was a spear-wound on the shin, but self- 
inflicted—caused him to lose two of the best months of the 
winter, and nearly to lose his leg as well. 
‘On the whole’, he continues, ‘I had a fairly successful time, but two 
or three more months would have made a great difference to me. As 
you will understand, it is no easy matter to get much out of the natives 
in a short time. By good fortune, both on Melville Island and on the 
Alligator Rivers I was with men who knew the language and were 
trusted by the natives; and after a little experience I got enough 
knowledge to be able to guide them, and also to understand a good deal 
of what the natives were saying. . . . We had three learned men from 
whom we gained much information.’ 
In a charming appreciation of Spencer's personality con¬ 
tributed to an Australian newspaper at the time of his death 
by Dr. Gilruth, allusion is made to these times as follows: 
‘It was the great privilege of few to know him as I knew him. For 
months we were thrown together in the closest intimacy with few 
literary and no scientific associates. For weeks we were virtually alone, 
travelling together through vast spaces of unoccupied Northern Aus¬ 
tralia. For days the journeyings were strenuous, the heat was intense, 
amenities of civilization were lacking and ordinary comforts absent. At 
times there was danger—fear of disaster from lack of water. Yet never 
was Spencer, who had previously experienced similar vicissitudes, queru- 
