MEMOIR 
33 
value. Once more, ‘We are simply hard at workfrom morning 
till night.’ The explorers are in the best of health, but soon, 
as they near the Gulf, will be ‘in the midst of heat, flies and 
mosquitos’. When they actually reach Borraloola, ‘a most 
deadly dull, monotonously uninteresting spot’, Spencer is 
‘feeling much like a jelly fish stranded on a damp beach’ 
and longs to ‘see something pretty’, and, in short, to get 
back home. ‘I think that the Anthropological Institute 
might appropriately award a vote of thanks to our wives, to 
whom I fear the anxiety and waiting are rather trying.’ He 
adds, ‘However, the natives do not leave us much time to 
lament the lack of scenery, and now I am contemplating how 
to write up all our work, and at the same time manage to get 
through a year’s hard grind of lectures and laboratory work.’ 
For even the happiest home-coming has its drawbacks; and 
four days after he reached Melbourne lectures began. 
Nevertheless, by the beginning of the following year, the 
book eventually entitled The Northern Tribes of Central 
Australia (Macmillan, 1904), and dedicated gratefully to 
David Syme, is well on its way towards completion, and 
Spencer can write to Balfour: 
‘I have packed the family off to the seaside, and am very hard at work 
writing up our results. It is only when you begin to do this that you 
realize your ignorance. However, I do not think that we could have 
done much more than we did, but of course with our present know¬ 
ledge we could do much more if we could only go over the same ground 
again. However, this is not possible. The last expedition added a good 
many grey hairs to my head, or rather gave me my first experience of 
these; and another one might turn me white. The Northern Territory 
of Australia is all very well if you have not to work hard; but when the 
exertion of writing makes you perspire, so that the water streams out 
of you, you can understand that work of any kind is very difficult. 
Also you cannot get native porters, as in Africa, to carry along soda- 
water and champagne and other luxuries.’ 
In April, when the manuscript has gone off to the publisher, 
3743 
