450 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



beauty of this lot," the advertisement says, ' and Its proximity to the flourishing capital of 

 Upper Canada, make it a most desirable situation for a gentleman of taste. The stage-coaches- 

 ■between Toronto and Holland Lauding and Newmarlcet pass the place daily ; and there appears 

 every prospect of Yonge Street either having a railroad or being macadamized very shortly. 

 Apply (if by letter free oi postage) to Robert Ferric, at Hamilton, the proprietor." 



In the advertisement of 1805, given above. Bond's Lake is styled a pond. Tlie small lakes In 

 these hills seemed, of course, to those who had become familiarized with the great lakes, simply 

 ponds. The term " lake " applied to Ontario, Huron, and the rest has given a very inadequate 

 idea of the magnitude and appearance of those vast expanses, to exterus who imagine them to 

 be picturesque sheets of water somewhat exceeding in size, but resembling, Windermere, Loch 

 Lomond, or possibly Lake Leman. "Sea" would have conveyed a juster notion : not however 

 to the German, who styles the lakes of Switzerland and the Tyrol, "seas." 



Bond's Lake inn, the way-side stopping place in the vale where Yonge Street skirts the lake,, 

 used to be, in an especial degree, of the old-country cast, in its appliances,, its fare, its parlours 

 and other rooms. 



LIIL— YONGE STREET FROM BOND'S LAKE TO THE SUMMIT OF THE RIDGES. 



"We now speedily passed Drynoch, lying off to the left, on elevated land, the abode of Capt. 

 Martin McLeod, formerly of the Isle of Skye. The family and domestic group sys-tematized on 

 a large scale at Drynoch here, was a Canadian reproduction of a chieftain's household. Capt. 

 McLeod was a Scot of the Norse vikinger type, of robust manly frame, of noble, frank, and 

 tender spirit ; an Ossianist too, and, in the Scandinavian direction, a philologist. Sir Walter 

 Scott would have made a study of Capt. McLeod, and may have done so. He was one of 

 eight brothers who all held commissions in the army. His own military life extended from 

 180S to 1832. As an officer successively of the 27th, the 79th and the 25tb regiments, he saw much 

 active service. He accompanied the force sent over to this continent in the war of 1812-13. 

 It was t])en that be for the first time saw the land which was to be his final home. He was. 

 present likewise at the affair of Plattsburg : and also, we believe, at the attack on New Orleans. 

 He afterwards took part in the so-called Peninsular war, and received a medal with four clasps 

 for Toulouse, Orthes, Nive, and Nivelle. He missed Waterloo, " unfortunately," as he used to 

 say ; but he was present with the allied troops in Paris during the occupation of that city in 

 1815. Of the 25th regiment he was for many years adjutant ; and then paymaster. Three of 

 his uncles were general officers. It is not inappropriate to add that the Major Mcljcod whO' 

 received the honour of a Companionship in the Order of St. Michael and St. George for 

 distinguished service in the Red River Expedition of 1S7G, was a son of Captain McLeod, of 

 Drynoch. 



That in and about the Canadian Drynoch Gaelic should be familiarly heard was in keeping 

 with the general character of the place. The ancient Celtic tongue was in fact a necessity, as 

 among tlie dependants of the house there were always some who had never learned the English 

 language. Drynoch was the name of the old home in Skye. The Skye Drynoch was an 

 unfenced, hilly pasture farm of about ten miles in extent, yielding nutriment to herds of wild 

 cattle and some 8,000 sheep. Within its limits a lake, Loch Brochadale, is still the haunt of 

 the otter which is hunted by the aid of the famous terriers of the island ; a mountain stream 

 abounds with salmon and trout ; while the heatlier and bracken of the slopes shelter grouse- 

 and other game. 



Wliittaker, in his History of Whalley, quoted by Hallam in his Middle Ages, describes the 

 aspect which, as he supposes, a certain portion of England presented to the eye, as seen from- 

 the top of Pendle Hill in Yorkshire, in the Saxon times. The picture which lie draws we in 

 Canada can realize with great perfectness. " Could a curious observer of the present day," he 

 says, " carry himself nine or ten centnries back, and ranging the summit of Pendle, survey the 

 forked vale of Calder on one side and the bolder margins of Ribble and Hodder on the other. 

 Instead of populous towns and villages, the castles, tlie old tower-built house, the elegant 

 modern mansion, the artificial plantation, the enclosed park and pleasure-ground, instead of 

 uninterrupted enclosures which liave driven sterility almost to the summit of the fells, how 

 great then must have been the contrast, when, ranging either at a distance, or immediately 

 beneath, his eye must have caught vast tracts of forest-ground stagnating with bog or darkened 

 by native woods, where the wild ox, the roe, the stag, and the wolf, had scarcely leai-ned. the 



