free pardon on their
return, though Sturt did his utmost to win fuller recognition of their
merits.

In such a work of generalisation as this, space will not permit of a
detailed account of the return voyage, but on the 20th of March they
reached the camp on the Murrumbidgee from which they had started. The
relief party were not there, and there was nothing left but to toil on,
though the men were falling asleep at the oars, and the river itself rose
and raged madly against them. When they reached a point within ninety
miles of the depot where Sturt expected the relief party to be, they
landed, and two men -- Hopkinson and Mulholland -- went forward on foot
for succour. They were now almost utterly without food, and had to wait
six dragging days before men arrived with drays and stores to their aid.

One little item let me add; the boat being no longer serviceable, was
burnt, Sturt giving as a reason that he was reluctant to leave her like a
log on the water. What a priceless relic that boat would now have become!

Sturt received but scant appreciation on his return from this heroic
journey. His eyesight was impaired and his health was failing; but
instead of obtaining much-needed rest, he was sent to Norfolk Island,
with a detachment of his regiment. There the moist climate still further
prejudiced his health, though he was able to quell a mutiny of the
convicts, and to save Norfolk Island from falling into their hands.
Governor Darling too proposed that Sturt should be sent as British
Resident to New Zealand, but filled with the love of continental
exploration, he would not leave Australia, to the satisfaction of the
fossils of the Colonial Office, who did not know of him, and promptly
appointed Busby. Even Sir G. Murray, after whom the river had been named,
had never heard of the river.

In 1832 or a little later, the temporary loss of the sight of one eye
forced him to go to England on leave, when he also bade adieu to his
regiment, which was ordered to India.

While in England, he published the first of his maps and books, but his
eyesight totally failing him, he retired from the army, July, 1833.
Sturt's eyesight, although never the same as before, was gradually
restored to him, and on September the 21st, 1834, he was married at Dover
to Charlotte Greene.

We must now take leave of this distinguished man, until he reappears in
these pages as an explorer of Central Australia.*

*[Footnote.] See Chapter 12.