Thoreau, on his famous journey to the Cape, when inclement weather forced him to coach between Sandwich and Orleans, was pleased not at all in respect of the utilities of the towns, but bears testimony, as a philosopher, to the extenuating attributes of their inhabitants. The opinion has been quoted often, and is worth quoting again: “I was struck by the pleasant equality which reigned among the stage company, and their broad and invulnerable good humor. They were what is called free and easy, and met one another to advantage, as men who had, at length, learned how to live. They appeared to know each other when they were strangers, they were so simple and downright. They were well met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as they could meet, and did not seem to be troubled with any impediment. They were not afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were contented to make just such a company as the ingredients allowed. It was evident that the same foolish respect was not here claimed, for mere wealth and station, that is in many parts of New England; yet some of them were the ‘first people,’ as they were called, of the various towns through which we passed. Retired sea-captains, in easy circumstances, who talked of farming as sea-captains are wont; an erect, respectable and trustworthy-looking man, in his wrapper, some of the salt of the earth, who had formerly been the salt of the sea; or a more courtly gentleman, who, perchance, had been a representative to the General Court in his day; or a broad, red-faced, Cape Cod man, who had seen too many storms to be easily irritated.” In short, Thoreau’s Cape-Codders were cosmopolitan creatures, men of the world that he was so ready to despise.