Thoreau writes in his journal:
Some of the inhabitants of the Cape think that the Cape is theirs and all occupied by them, but in my eyes it is no more theirs than it is the black-birds’, and in visiting the Cape there is hardly more need of my regarding or going through the villages than of going through the blackbirds’ nests. I am inclined to leave them both on one side, or perchance I just glance into them to see how they are built and what they contain. I know that they have spoken for the whole Cape, and lines are drawn on their maps accordingly, but I know these are imaginary, having perambulated many such, and they would have to get me or one of my craft to find them for them. For the most part, indeed with very trifling exceptions, there were no human beings there, only a few imaginary lines on a map . . .
