Next morning we embarked on board the Peter Robinson steamer, and proceeded down Lake Simcoe. This most beautiful piece of water is above forty miles in length, and about twenty in breadth, and is in winter so firmly frozen over, that it is crossed in sledges in every direction. The shores are flat and fertile; and we passed a number of clearings, some very extensive. On a point projecting into the lake, and surrounded by cleared land, a village has been laid out, and some houses built. I went into one of them to rest while they were taking in wood, and found there the works of Shakspeare and Walter Scott, and a good guitar; but the family were absent.
REACH THE HOLLAND LANDING.
We reached the Holland Landing, at the southern extremity of the lake, about three o'clock; and the rest of our way lay through the Home District, and through some of the finest land and most prosperous estates in Upper Canada. It was a perpetual succession, not of clearings, such as I had seen of late, but of well-cultivated farms. The vicinity of the capital, and an excellent road leading to it (called Yonge Street), have raised the value of landed property here, and some of the farmers are reputed rich men.
Mr. Jarvis gave me an account of an Irish emigrant, a labouring man, who had entered his service some years ago as teamster (or carter); he was then houseless and penniless. Seven years afterwards the same man was the proprietor of a farm of two hundred acres of cleared and cropped land, on which he could proudly set his foot, and say, "It is mine, and my children's after me!"
ARRIVE HOME AT TORONTO.
At three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was setting in Lake Ontario, I arrived at the door of my own house in Toronto, having been absent on this wild expedition just two months.
THE END.
London:
Spottiswoodes and Shaw,
New-street-Square.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Through all these districts there are now railroads, and every facility for comfortable travelling.