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given our choice of the admirable views of Victoria and small handbooks of local interest. That afternoon our visit concluded.
We left Melbourne feeling more Australian than the Australians. The afternoon sun was gilding the level plain as we sped across it, passing scattered villages, often little more than clusters of iron-roofed shanties, with a horse, its bridle hitched to a post, and children and dogs playing in the road. After the swift darkness had come, there was a clear night of stars lighting up the dim country, the great spreading empty plain with its scattered gum trees, while the lamps of the carriages sent out shafts of light, like searchlights, across brilliantly illuminated patches, momentarily visible in the darkness.
