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Tonight we'll read a selection from Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1908.

Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.

A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, civil disobedience, and argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Thoreau traveled to Cape Cod in Massachusetts four times, which inspired this excursion or travel book.

If you would like to hear more Thoreau on snoozecast, check out The Wild from March of 2021, along with Walden, Parts 1 and 2, which both aired in 2019.

Let's get cozy, close your eyes, relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths.

After spending the night in Bridgewater and picking up a few arrowheads there in the morning, we took the cars for Sandwich, where we arrived before noon.

This was the terminus of the Cape Cod Railroad, though it is but the beginning of the Cape.

As it rained hard, with driving mists, and there was no sign of its holding up, we here took that almost obsolete conveyance, the stage, for as far as it went that day, as we told the driver.

We had forgotten how far a stage could go in a day, but we were told that the Cape roads were very heavy, though they added that being of sand, the rain would improve them.

This coach was an exceedingly narrow one, but as there was a slight spherical excess over two on a seat, the driver waited till nine passengers had got in.

Without taking the measure of any of them, and then shut the door after two or three ineffectual slams, as if the fault were all in the hinges or the latch, while we timed our inspirations and explorations so as to assist them.

We were now fairly on the Cape, which extends from Sandwich eastward 35 miles, and then north and northwest 30 more, in all 65, and has an average breadth of about five miles.

In the interior, it rises to the height of 200, and sometimes, perhaps 300 feet above the level of the sea.

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