A “Short Trip Guide to America”, published as late as 1875, dismisses the Cape as a “wild and desolate”, but interesting, section of the Atlantic Coast,--this while devoting considerable pages to the description of the “wonders” of Lawrence and Lowell. It is curious that when a guide book was describing the peninsula as “wild and desolate”, perhaps because it did, indeed, lead a life quite apart from the Mainland, Cape Codders, themselves, were among the most cosmopolitan people on earth. For them, distances were measured in terms of days at sea, and days meant nothing while in pursuit of their fortunes. Through the medium of the wonderful clipper ship, and the blue seas that were always near enough to be seen from the rooftop of any house, the world was at their doorstep. The best illustration of this, which also throws light on Cape character, is the well-worn anecdote of the central Cape Captain who had travelled many times around the world but had never negotiated the twelve mile buggy ride to Chatham. When asked, “How come?”, by someone who must have been a Mainlander, he would reply, “I just never had any business there”. But the Captains _did_ have business in Singapore and Hong Kong, in Java and the Indies, and in every important port throughout the world, and there they sailed often. At the time the “Short Trip Guide” was being written Captain Baker of South Dennis, still in his thirties, had already made several voyages to the Orient. Once, on a return voyage from Hong Kong, Captain Baker brought with him to the Cape two Chinamen and one young Chinese woman. The woman was installed at the Baker homestead as a nurse for the Baker children, and, for what few stay-at-homes there were, a touch of the Orient came to South Dennis. The nurse was capable and attractive, and evidently her young charges were devoted to her. One can only guess at her thoughts as she stood on the bank of Bass River looking westward into the setting sun; or as she walked up the winding Main Street which must have seemed so silent and colorless after the bright hues and loud cries of Hong Kong. And one can only guess at the thoughts of the people of the town who looked through the curtained windows of staid, white houses at the strange figure in Oriental dress who walked their streets. It is to be hoped that they took her to their hearts and, if folks in the village then were as they are today, it is a certainty that they did. But one April, before the Cape burst into its myriad colors of coreopsis and broom, of lilac and daisy, and lupin, and all the wonderful signs of springtime that might rival the colors of China, she fell ill, and, in the little back parlor of the Baker home, she died.