But after a little while their courage came back, and they tried to think of some way of getting back to the ships or of reaching some Spanish settlement. It was impossible to think of travelling by land, and at length they decided that they would have to make boats and put out to sea with them. But how hard it seemed to undertake boat-making without tools and materials! It was thought impossible at first to do more than make some large rafts, but by and by they discovered that their spurs and cross-bows and stirrups could be beaten out into nails and axes and saws and other tools, and that cordage could be made from the manes and tails of the horses, and that the seams could be caulked with palmetto fibre and pitched with pine rosin; and, in fact, with time and patience, they managed to build five very good boats, living in the meantime on horse flesh and shell-fish and the maize which they could get from the Indians. When at last they were ready to start, forty of the men had already died of sickness and hunger besides those that had been killed by the Indians. They kept along the coast for some weeks, hoping to reach a Spanish settlement on the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico, but they could not find this place, and as it was not safe to land anywhere else on account of the Indians, they had a most wretched voyage, suffering from cold and hunger and drenched with rain, and finally separated from one another by a fearful storm which drove the boats far apart. De Vaca's boat was thrown upon an island, and so hard was it to get it off again into the sea that the men had to take off their clothing and wade into the water to dig the boat out of the sand, and in doing this many of them lost their lives; for no sooner did the boat touch the water than it was upset in the surf, and not only were some of the men drowned, but everything in the boat was lost, and De Vaca and his friends found themselves on this strange island with no boat or food or clothing. But, as it happened, the Indians on this island were kind and pitiful. They built fires to warm the sufferers and gave them food, and when after a few days, they were joined by some men from the other boats, they found that their sufferings had been no worse than their friends', for all had met with the same hard fate. They stayed here many months, and one after another of the company died, until only De Vaca and three others were left.