One has only to cross the mountains of New South Wales and descend into the westward-lying regions to find that he has left the choice climate behind him, and found a new one of a quite different character.

In fact, he would not know by the thermometer that he was not in the blistering Plains of India.

Captain Sturt, the great explorer, gives us a sample of the heat.
"The wind, which had been blowing all the morning from the N.E., increased to a heavy gale, and I shall never forget its withering effect.

I sought shelter behind a large gum-tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific that I wondered the very grass did not take fire.

This really was nothing ideal: everything both animate and inanimate gave way before it; the horses stood with their backs to the wind and their noses to the ground, without the muscular strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute, and the leaves of the trees under which we were sitting fell like a snow shower around us.