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.