TORONTO OP OLD. 169 



It is interesting to observe the prol3a"ble process "by which the appellation "Toronto" came to 

 be attached to the Trading-post here. Its real name, as imposed by the French authorities, was 

 Fort RouUle, from a French colonial minister of that name, in 1749-54. This we learn from a 

 despatch of M. de Longueil, Governor-in-Chief of Canada in 1752. And "Toronto," at that 

 period, according to contemporaneous maps, denoted Lake Simeoe and tlie surrounding region. 

 Thus in Carver's Travels through North America in 1766-8, in p. 172, we read, " On the north- 

 west part of this lake [Ontario], and to the soutli of Lake Huron, is a tribe of Indians called the 

 Mississagues, whose town is denominated Toronto, from the lake [i. e. Lake Simeoe] on which 

 it lies, but they are not very numerous." This agrees with Lahontan's statements in 16S7. 

 which will be given hereafter. The supposition that " Toronto " is a changed Italian word, tlie 

 proper name of either a place or a person, is entirely gratuitous, and wholly destitute of foun- 

 dation. 



Fort Rouille was the terminus on Lake Ontario oi one of the Iroquois highways to Lake 

 Toronto. From being, as it were, a "Toronto station," the point of debarkation for an over- 

 land tramp to Toronto, it grew by some cliance to be known as Toronto itself. Tlie terminus 

 d quo usurped the name of the terminus ad qtiem. (Another starting-point for the same destina- 

 tion was Teyogagon or Teiaiagon, further to the east ; probably Bownianville.) 



Looking at the geographical position of Lake Simeoe, almost at the summit-level of the water- 

 shed between Lakes Huron and Ontario ; communicating with both by trails along river vail eys ; 

 with Lake Huron by Willow Creek and the Notawasaga, by the Coldwater and by the Severn ; — 

 with Lake Ontario by the Holland River and the Humber, by Black River ajid the Scugog ; — 

 communicating, moreover, after portages, eastward, with the chain of lakes that And then- outlet 

 by the Trent and the Bay of Quinte, — and even vsdth the farther distant waters of the Ottawa — 

 regarding, we say, the facilities for intercourse with the West and North, with the South and 

 East, which centre here, we may conceive Lake Smicoe and its neighbourhood to have been, in 

 the olden time, the true "Place of Meeting,'' said to be denoted by the (no doubt greatly mani- 

 pulated) Iroquois word "Toronto;" the Place of Meeting, either of tribes or of convenient 

 water-ways ; or even, it maybe, the Place of Meeting where deadly passages of arms repeatedly 

 occurred between hostile tribes. One of the princiiaal fighting-grounds in the contest between 

 the Western Hurons and Ojibways, and their (at length victorious) assailants, the Iroquois of the 

 south side of Lake Ontario, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was the district to the 

 north-west of Lake Simeoe, between Couchiching and Notawasaga Bay. In the neighbourhood 

 of Barrie, as elsewhere, barrows formerly existed which were found to contain surprising quan- 

 tities of human remains, deposited without order, the skulls often bearing marks of violence. 

 Hereabout also have been dug up many flint axes and arrow-heads. (To account for large 

 gatherings of human remains, however, it is not necessary to suppose battles. It was the native 

 practice to transport to special burial-spots, periodically, in a formal manner, the dead of tem- 

 porary encampments.) 



IV.— FROM THE GARRISON BACK TO THE PLACE OF BEGINNING. 



We now enter again the existing Fort ; passing back through the western gate. On our right 

 we liave the site of the magazine which so fatally exploded in 1813 : we learn from Gen. Sheaffe's 

 despatch to Sir George Provost, that it was "in the western battery." In close proximity to 

 the magazine was the Government House of the day, an extensive rambling cluster of one-storey 

 buildings, all "riddled " or shattered to pieces by the concussion, when the explosion took place. 

 The ruin that thus befel the Governor's residence led, on the restoration of peace, to the pur- 

 chase of Mr. Justice Elmsley's house on King street, and its conversion into "Government 

 House." 



From the main battery, which (with a small semi-circular bastion for the venerable flag-staff 

 of the Fort) extends along the brow of the palisaded bank, south of the parade, the royal 

 salutes, resounding down and across the lake, used to be fired on the arrival and departure of 

 the Lieutenant-Governor, and at the opening and closing of the Legislature. 



From the south-eastern bastion, overlooking the ravine below, a twelve-pounder was dis- 



