CRYING COCKLES, AND MUSSELS,
ALIVE, ALIVE-OH!

But the sun was growing large in the western sky; on the ground to the
left, their failing shadows slanted out lengthwise; those cast by the
horses' bodies were mounted on high spindle-legs. The two men ceased
their trifling, and nudged by the fall of day began to ride at a more
business-like pace, pushing forward through the deep basin of Bacchus's
marsh, and on for miles over wide, treeless plains, to where the road
was joined by the main highway from the north, coming down from Mount
Alexander and the Bendigo. Another hour, and from a gentle eminence the
buildings of Melbourne were visible, the mastheads of the many vessels
riding at anchor in Hobson's Bay. Here, too, the briny scent of the sea,
carrying up over grassy flats, met their nostrils, and set Mahony
hungrily sniffing. The brief twilight came and went, and it was already
night when they urged their weary beasts over the Moonee ponds, a
winding chain of brackish waterholes. The horses shambled along the
broad, hilly tracks of North Melbourne; warily picked their steps
through the city itself. Dingy oil-lamps, set here and there at the
corners of roads so broad that you could hardly see across them, shed
but a meagre light, and the further the riders advanced, the more
difficult became their passage: the streets, in process of laying, were
heaped with stones and intersected by trenches. Finally, dismounting,
they thrust their arms through their bridles, and laboriously covered
the last half-mile of the journey on foot. Having lodged the horses at a
livery-stable, they repaired to a hotel in Little Collins Street. Here
Purdy knew the proprietor, and they were fortunate enough to secure a
small room for the use of themselves alone.