Still, there is much of natural beauty left, and the city authorities, in adopting plans of streets, roads and avenues through the townships now in the city limits, have shown good taste and judgment in abandoning the rectangular plan of streets so common in all modern municipalities and laid out the thoroughfares in accordance with the natural slope of the ground. The country is hilly, with broad valleys between, the direction of the hills running generally north and south. Along the ridge overlooking the picturesque Spuyten Duyvil and Harlem are to be found views

which a resident of the great city would travel miles in foreign lands to visit. Owing to the windings of the stream and the irregular shape of Manhattan Island, vistas of Hudson's River and the straight line of the Palisades of New Jersey greet the eye looking westward, while at the base of the ridge the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil lie in a deep valley, giving the appearance of a succession of lakes rather than one continuous stream.

Historic associations, blended with natural beauties, tempts one who has known the territory all his life, in giving a description of its present appearance, to combine with it a short gossipy account of its present as well as former owners. Beginning at the northwest corner of what was West Farms, just south of the Yonkers line, we find a beautiful panoramic view of the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil Creek. At one's feet lies King's Bridge or Paparinamin or Fordham, as we see by the colonial account of the region the present King's Bridge was formerly called ; just over the Yonkers line, on the site of the present residence of William O. Giles, stood Fort Independence, the last American work on the Westchester side abandoned by the American army on Washington's retreat to White Plains.