They had neither mast or sail, anchor or cable, head or stern, no bows to fence off the waves, or rudder to steer any course, or oars to give any motion to their floats, whose bottoms were flat like a punt, so that they were obliged to thrust them along with such poles as they had, some of which were about eight or ten feet long, which gained them a little way, though very slowly. All the remedy they had in this case was, to set on with their poles towards the shore, and to observe, by their pocket compasses, which way it lay; and this they laboured hard at, lest they should be lost in the night, and not know which way to go. Their carpenters, in the mean time, with some spare boards which they had, or rather made, raised their sides as well as they could, to keep off the wash of the sea, if any wind should rise so as to make the water rough; and thus they fenced against every danger as well as they could, though, all put together, they were but in a very sorry condition. Now they had time to reflect upon their voracious fury, in ranging the shore to pick up gold, without considering where and in what condition they were, and without looking out on shore for a place of safety: nay, they might now have reflected on the madness of venturing out into a lake or inland sea of that vast extent, in such pitiful bottoms as they had under them. Their business, doubtless, had been to have stopped within the mouth of the river, and found a convenient place to land their goods and secure their lives; and when they had pitched their camp upon any safe high ground, where they might be sure they could neither be overflowed nor surrounded with water, they might have searched the shores of the lake as far as they thought fit; but thus to launch into an unknown water, and in such a condition, as to their vessels, as is described above, was most unaccountably rash and inconsiderate. Never were a crew of fifty men, all able and experienced sailors, so embarked, nor drawn into such a snare; for they were surrounded with water for three or four miles in breadth on the nearest shore, and this all on a sudden, the country lying low and flat for such a breadth, all which appeared dry land and green, like the fields, the day before; and, without question, the men were sufficiently surprised.