[Illustration:  Yacht race in buzzard’s bay]

The village of Buzzards Bay is a railroad junction point and there the Cape Cod canal makes its exit into Buzzards Bay.  Thence to Bourne proper is only about a mile.  Bourne, the village, is intersected by the canal and is connected by the highway bridge over the canal.  There are two main highways following the course of the canal.  The one on the north side follows its course most of the way, passing the village of Bournedale, thence to Sagamore, by crossing over the easterly canal bridge.  The other road is on the south side of the canal and the two join at Sagamore village, where a single main road runs to the Sandwich line and the central and lower Cape.

Southerly the town extends toward Falmouth and along the line of the Woods Hole branch railroad lie the summer resort villages of Monument Beach, Pocasset and Cataumet.  These resorts are popular from their sightly location along the shores of Buzzards Bay.  The views are entrancing, the waters of the bay are suitable for warm sea bathing and boating is here a sport that is at its best.  Back of these villages lie woodlands extending easterly to Sandwich and Mashpee.

Among the pioneers of Bourne are recognized Ebenezer Nye, John Smith, Elisha Bourne, John Gibbs, Jr., Benjamin Gibbs and others who followed them.  The land was purchased from the Indians and permanent homes were early established there.

In 1717 a unique proposal was made in the General Court for the assessment of the towns on the Cape for the building and maintenance of a fence from Peaked Hill cliffs on the Massachusetts bay side to the head waters of Buzzards bay on the other side, to keep the wolves of Plymouth county from invading Barnstable county where they destroyed sheep and caused other destruction.  Had the project gone through it would have been a practical fencing off of the entire Cape from the rest of the continent.

Probably the thing of greatest interest to tourists today in the town of Bourne is the Cape Cod canal.  It completely bisects the town along its eight mile course through the land and is of never failing interest to all strangers.  Traffic passing through, consisting of tugs towing barges, colliers, of large and small tonnage, freight boats and occasional government craft can be seen at close view from the highways on either side and from the bridges that span the canal.  The opening and closing of the two huge jack-knife bridges is seldom without interested spectators during daylight hours.

At night the canal is brilliantly lighted along its banks and the passage through of the big New York boat is a sight that attracts a great many people.  The value of the canal to the system of national defense was demonstrated during the war and a bill is now before Congress for the purchase of it and for its operation by the war department.  Probabilities point to much greater development under government ownership when it will probably be widened and deepened and there is a possibility that locks will be installed to regulate the rushing current that now more or less hampers navigation.