“Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking!

One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,

steamers, sails,

And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hulls

dark-gliding in the distance.

Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil!

Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!”

-Walt Whitman, “Paumanok” from Leaves of Grass

Chapter 1: "Talk of the Begi. . .