92 OLD PLY^IOUTH TRAILS 



might say, instead of sailing directly to port, for 

 I found three guideboards at intervals of a mile 

 or two and each announced with monotonous 

 regularity that it was two and a half miles to 

 Cotuit. When it comes to making statements 

 the Cape guideboards stand loyally by one an- 

 other. But the little town hove above the ho- 

 rizon at last with its lovely blue bay of warm 

 Gulf-stream water, set in a sweet curve of white 

 sand and backed by neat cottages bowered in 

 green trees. It is worth walking across the Cape 

 to reach Cotuit at the journey's end, but I doubt 

 the eight miles. If it is not fifteen by way of 

 Wakeby, Mashpee, Santuit and the rest I am 

 mightily mistaken. 



Thoreau with his usual clear gift of prophecy 

 said of the Cape: "The time must come when 

 this coast will be a place of resort for those New 

 Englanders who really wish to visit the seaside. 

 At present it is wholly unknown to the fashion- 

 able world and probably it will never be agree- 

 able to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or 

 a circular railway or an ocean of mint julep, that 

 the visitor is in search of — if he thinks more of 

 the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at 

 Newport — I trust that for a long time he will be 



