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..