TORONTO OP OLD. 435 



This minute bit of insulated land possessed, to tlie boyish fancy, great capabilities. Within 

 its convenient circuit, what phantasies and dreams might not be realized ? A Juan Fernandez, 

 a Barataria, a New Atlantis. — At the present moment we find that what was once our charmed 

 isle has now become terra firma, wholly amalgamated with the mainland. Silt has hidden from 

 view the tangled lodgments of the floods. A carpet of pleasant herbage has overspread the silt. 

 The border-strip of shrubbery and grape-vine, which so delightfully walled it round, has been 

 improved, root and branch, out of being. 



Near the Island, on the left side, a rivulet, of which more immediately, pouring down through 

 a deep, narrow ravine, entered the Don. On the right, just at this point, the objectionable 

 marshes began to disappear, and the whole bottom of the vale was early converted into hand- 

 some meadows. Scattered about were grand elms and butter-nut trees, fine basswood and 

 button-wood trees, with small groves of the Canadian willow, which pleasantly resembles, in 

 habit, the olive tree of the south of Europe. Along the flats, remains of Indian encampments 

 were often met with ; tusks of bears and other animals ; with fragments of coarse pottery, 

 streaked or furrowed rudely over, for ornament. And all along the valley, calcareous masses, 

 richly impregnated with iron, were found, detached, from time to time, as was supposed, from 

 certain places in the hill-sides. — At the long-ago epoch when the land went up, the waters came 

 down with a concentrated rush from several directions into the valley just here, from some 

 accidental cause, carving out in their course, in the enormous deposit of the drift, a number of 

 deep and rapidly descending channels, converging aU upon this point. — The drainage of a large 

 extent of acreage to the eastward, also at that period, found here for a time its waj' into the 

 Don, as may be seen by a neighbouring gorge, and the deep and wide, but now dry water-course 

 leading to it, known, where the "Mill road" crosses it, as the "Big Hollow." Bare and deso- 

 late, at that remote era, must have been the appearance of these earth-banks and ridges and 

 flats, as also those in the vicinity of all our rivers : for many a long year they must have resem- 

 bled the surroundings of some great tidal river, to which the sea, after ebbing, had failed to 

 return. 



One result of tli3 ancient down-rush of waters, just about here, was that on both sides of the 

 river there were to be observed severa,! strikmg specimens of that long, tldn, narrow kind of 

 hOl which is popularly known as a " hog's back." One on the east side afforded, along its ridge, 

 a convenient ascent frora the meadows to the table-land above, where fine views up and down 

 the vale were obtainable, somewhat Swiss in character, including in the distance the lake, to the 

 south. Overhanging the pathway, about half-way up, a group of white-birch trees is remem- 

 bered by the token that, on their stems, a number of young men and maidens of the neigh- 

 bourhood had, in sentimental mood, after the manner of the Corydons and Amaryllises of classic 

 times, incised their names. 



The west side of the river, as well as the east, of which we hare been more especially speaking, 

 presented here-'also a collection of convergent "hogsbacks" and deeply cliannelled water-courses. 

 One of the latter still conducted down a living stream to the Don. This was the rivulet already- 

 noticed as entering just above the Island. It bore the graceful name of " Castle Frank Brook," 



XXV.— CASTLE FRANK. 

 Castle Frank was a rustic chateau or summer-house, built by Governor Simcoe in the midst 

 of the woods, on the brow of a steep a,nd lofty bank, which overlooks the vale of the Don, a 

 short distance to the north of where we have been lingering. The construction of this edifice 

 was a mere divcrtissenieiit while engaged in the grand work of planting in a field literally and 

 entirely new, the institutions of civilization. All the way from the site of the town of York to 

 the front of this building, a iiarrow carria,ge-road and convenient bridle-path had been out out 

 by the soldiers, and carefully graded. Remains of this .ancient engineering achievement are 

 stiU to be traced along the base of the hUl below the Necropolis and elsewhere. The brook — 

 Castle Frank Brook— a little way from where it enters the Don, was spanned by a wooden bridge. 

 Advantage being taken of a narrow ridge, that opportunely had its commencing point close by 

 on the north side, the roadway here began the ascent of the adjoining heiglit. It then ran slant- 

 ingly up the hill-side, along a cutting that is still to be seen. The table-land at the summit was 

 finally .gained by utilising a,noi;her narrow ridge. It then proceeded along the level at the top 

 for some distance through a forest of lofty pines, until the chateau itself was reached. 



