MEMOIR 
34 
he tells Frazer: ‘It has cost me the whole of the Long Vac., 
and every spare minute during the year, and I am not at all 
satisfied with it; and were time no object would like to start 
afresh. When you read it please remember that it has been 
written under rather hard conditions.’ As a matter of fact, 
the second book proved no less valuable than its predecessor 
in the eyes of all serious students of anthropology; though it 
was perhaps less startling in its effect upon their opinions, 
inasmuch as it abundantly confirmed the former account of 
beliefs and practices that to many had seemed well-nigh 
incredible on their first announcement. 
It turned out that Spencer was wrong in assuming that 
a few grey hairs, or even seven years of routine work as 
President of the Professorial Board of the University, could 
exorcize his roving spirit. Although a scheme for a further 
journey with Gillen for the purpose of studying a desert 
tribe out to the south-west of Lake Eyre came to nothing, 
yet in 1911, when Gillen was already helpless beneath the 
malady that in the next year led to his death, Spencer was 
induced by the Commonwealth Government to become 
leader of a small expedition dispatched by them in order to 
make preliminary scientific investigations into conditions in 
the Northern Territory. Thus once more he repaired to the 
Gulf of Carpentaria, though this time he started northwards 
from Darwin and turned east along the Roper River. In 
December he was requested by the Commonwealth Govern¬ 
ment to return to the Territory for a year in the official 
capacity of Special Commissioner and Chief Protector of 
Aborigines. The opportunity of studying the natives under 
such favourable circumstances was not to be resisted. The 
Administrator of the Territory, Dr. J. A. Gilruth, was his 
frequent companion, and did everything that he could to 
further his designs. These included a visit to Melville Island, 
at that time destitute of white inhabitants except for one 
