Chapter V

Melbourne is built on two hills and the valley that lies between.

It was over a year since Mahony or Purdy had been last in the capital,
and next morning, on stepping out of the "Adam and Eve," they walked up
the eastern slope to look about them. From the summit of the hill their
view stretched to the waters of the Bay, and its forest of masts. The
nearer foreground was made up of mud flats, through which a sluggish,
coffee-coloured river wound its way to the sea. On the horizon to the
north, the Dandenong Ranges rose storm-blue and distinct, and seemed
momently to be drawing nearer; for a cold wind was blowing, which
promised rain. The friends caught their glimpses of the landscape
between dense clouds of white dust, which blotted everything out for
minutes at a time, and filled eyes, nose, ears with a gritty powder.

Tiring of this they turned and descended Great Collins Street--a
spacious thoroughfare that dipped into the hollow and rose again, and
was so long that on its western height pedestrians looked no bigger than
ants. In the heart of the city men were everywhere at work, laying gas
and drain-pipes, macadamising, paving, kerbing: no longer would the old
wives' tale be credited of the infant drowned in the deeps of Swanston
Street, or of the bullock which sank, inch by inch, before its owner's
eyes in the Elizabeth Street bog. Massive erections of freestone were
going up alongside here a primitive, canvas-fronted dwelling, there one
formed wholly of galvanised iron. Fashionable shops, two storeys high,
stood next tiny, dilapidated weatherboards. In the roadway, handsome
chaises, landaus, four-in-hands made room for bullock-teams, eight and