Cape Cod

Cape Cod is a work written by Henry David Thoreau and first published in 1865.

On this occasion, Thoreau brings us this series of essays detailing each of his explorations along the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

He vividly describes the natural landscape, the ocean, the flora and fauna of the environment he discovers, and the people he encounters along the way.

His observations are rich in detail and capture the raw beauty and harsh reality of life by the sea, resulting in not only a travelogue, but also a meditation on the relationship between man and nature.

"Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, we are told, covers more than two-thirds of the globe, but of which a man who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace, more than of another world, I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849, another the succeeding June, and another to Truro in July, 1855; the first and last time with a single companion, the second time alone. I have spent, in all, about three weeks on the Cape; walked from Eastham to Provincetown twice on the Atlantic side, and once on the Bay side also, excepting four or five miles, and crossed the Cape half a dozen times on my way; but having come so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted. My readers must expect only so much saltness as the land breeze acquires from blowing over an arm of the sea, or is tasted on the windows and the bark of trees twenty miles inland, after September gales. I have been accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, but latterly I have extended my excursions to the seashore."