As I have explained before, the Hospital was surrounded by a board fence, with guards walking their beats on the ground outside.

A small creek flowed through the southern end of the grounds, and at its lower end was used as a sink.

The boards of the fence came down to the surface of the water, where the Creek passed out, but we found, by careful prodding with a stick, that the hole between the boards and the bottom of the Creek was sufficiently large to allow the passage of our bodies, and there had been no stakes driven or other precautions used to prevent egress by this channel.

A guard was posted there, and probably ordered to stand at the edge of the stream, but it smelled so vilely in those scorching days that he had consulted his feelings and probably his health, by retiring to the top of the bank, a rod or more distant.

We watched night after night, and at last were gratified to find that none went nearer the Creak than the top of this bank.
Then we waited for the moon to come right, so that the first part of the night should be dark.