TORONTO OF OLD. 563 



as a link in one of their ancient trails between Huron and Ontario ; and they seem to have 

 Imparted to the first white men their own notions on the subject. " It apparently rises," says 

 the Gazetteer of 1799, speaking of the Rouge or Nen, " in the vicinity of one of the branches of 

 Holland's river, with which it will probably, at some future period, be connected by a Canal." 

 A "proposed Canal" is accordingly here marked on one of the first manuscript maps of 

 Upper Canada. 



Father St. Lawrence and Father Mississippi pour their streams— so travellers assure us — 

 from urns situated at no great distance apart. Lake Itaska and its vicinity, just west of Lake 

 Superior, possess a charm for this reason. In like manner, to compare small things with 

 great, the ijarlicular quarter of the Ridges where the waters of the Humber and tlie Holland 

 ■Qsed to be seen in near proximity to each other, had always with ourselves a special interest. 

 Two small lakes, called respectively Lake SproXton and Lake Simon, important feeders of the 

 Rouge, a little to the east of the Glenlonely property, and situated very close to streams that 

 pass into the east branch of the Holland river : so that the conjecture of the author of the 

 Gazetteer was a good one. He Says," apparently the sources of the Rouge and Holland lie near 

 each other." 



After passing the notable locality of the Ridges just spoken of, the Land began perceptibly to 

 decline ; and soon emerging from the confused glens and hillocks and woods that had long on 

 every side been hedging in the view, we suddenly came out upon a brow where a wide prospect 

 was obtained, stretcliing far to the north, and far to the east and west. From such an eleva- 

 tion, the acres here and there denuded of their woods by the solitary axeman could not be 

 distinguished : accordingly, the panorama presented here for many a year continued to be 

 exactly that which met the eyes of the first exploring party from York in 1793. As we used to 

 see it, it seemed in effect to be an unbroken forest : in the foreground bold and billowy and of 

 every variety of green ; in the middle distance assuming neutral, indistinct tints, as it dipped 

 down into what looked like a wide vale : then apparentlj^ rising by successive gentle stages, 

 coloured now deep violet, now a tender blue, up to tiie line of the sky. In a depression m the 

 far horizon, immediately in front, was seen the silvery sheen of water. This, of course, was the 

 lake known since 1793 as Lake Simcoe ; but previously spoken of by the French sometimes as 

 Lake Siniou or Sheniong ; sometimes as Lake Ouentironk, Ouentaron, and Toronto — the very 

 name which is so familiar to us now, as appertaining to a locality thirty miles southward of 

 this lake. The French also in their own tongue sometimes designated it, perhaps for some 

 reason connected with fishing operations, Lac aux Claies, Hurdle Lake. Thus in the Gazetteer 

 of 1799 we have, " Simcoe Lake : formerly Lake aux Claies, Ouentironk, or Sheniong, situated 

 between York and Gloucester Upon Lake Huron : it has a few small islands and se-\-eral good 

 harbours," And again on another page of the same Gazetteer, we have the article : " Toronto 

 Lake (or Toronto) : lake le Clie [i.e., Lac aux Claies] was formerly so called by some : others," 

 the same article proceeds to say, " called the chain of lakes from the vicinity of Jlatchedash 

 towards the head of the Bay of Quintfe, the Toronto lakes and the communication from the 

 one to the other was called the Toronto river :" whilst in another place in the Gazetteer we have 

 the information given us that the Humber was also styled tlie Toronto river, thus : " Toronto 

 river: called by some St. John's: now called the Humber." We shall presently see how the 

 name Toronto came to be thus variously applied. 



The region of which we obtained a distant view, where 



" The bursting i>rospect spreads immense around" 

 on the northern brow of the Ridges, is a classic one, renowned in the historj' of the Wyandots 

 or Hurons, and in the early French missionary annals. 



The peninsula included between Notawasaga ba3', Matchedash or Sturgeon bay, the river 

 Severn, Lake Conchichin and Lake Simcoe, was a locality, in foi'mer [times, largely frequented 

 by the native tribes. It was especially the head-quarters of the Wyandots or Hurons. Villages, 

 burial-grounds, and cultivated lands abounded in it. Unusual numbers of the red men congre- 

 gated there. It was, in short, the place of concourse, the place of meeting, indicated by the 

 Huron term, which European lips have conveniently moulded into "Toronto." Gabriel 

 Sagard has it in his " Dictionnaire de la Langue Huronne," published at Paris in 1636, in the 

 form Torontoii, and he translates it It y en a 'jcaMcowp— there's plenty ; whether of men or of 

 nything else. He has killed many Tsonontouans : Toronton Tsonontouan ahouyo. 



