"Here I met with another of the volunteers, who proposing a walk, we went out together, and proceeded to the Plaza. I found a good many old acquaintances set up in business at this spot; one, who had been a captain, had recently turned money-broker, and now kept an office for the exchange of coin and gold-dust, having entered into partnership with a highly respectable and agreeable individual, of active business habits, who promised to prove a great acquisition to the concern. "We soon reached a low, long, _adobé_ building, situated at the upper side of the square, and which my companion told me was the Custom House. To the right of the Plaza stood the Saint Charles's Hotel, a wooden edifice covered in with canvas, and the Peytona House, an establishment of a similar description, in both of which we did not fail to find the usual games carried on. "The streets leading down to the water-side contain comparatively few hotels or eating-houses, they being chiefly wood and canvas trading-stores. I observed amongst them several newly opened auction and commission-rooms, where goods were being put up, recommended and knocked down in true Yankee style. An immense number of wooden frame-houses in course of erection met our view in every direction; and upon remarking that many of them appeared to have been purposely left incomplete, I ascertained that this arose from the extreme difficulty of procuring lumber, which, on account of its scarcity, occasionally fetched an incredibly high price. A good deal of it is brought from Oregon, and some from South America. Many of the larger houses, but far inferior, notwithstanding, to such of the same kind as could easily be procured in New York at a rental of from 300 to 400 dollars a-year, cost here at least 10,000 dollars to build them, the lots on which they were erected being valued at sums varying from 30,000 to 50,000 dollars, according to the locality. Many spots of ground, just large enough for a small trading-house or a tent to stand upon, let at from 1200 to 2000 dollars. "Amongst the various emigrants who daily flocked into the city--for each day brought its fresh arrivals--were numerous Chinese, and a very considerable number of Frenchmen, from the Sandwich Islands and from South America. The former had been consigned, with houses and merchandise, to certain Americans in San Francisco, to whom they were bound by contract, as laborers, to work at a scale of wages very far below the average paid to mechanics and others generally. The houses they brought with them from China, and which they set up where they were wanted, were infinitely superior and more substantial than those erected by the Yankees, being built chiefly of logs of wood, or scantling, from six to eight inches in thickness, placed one on the top of the other, to form the front, rear, and sides; whilst the roofs were constructed on an equally simple and ingenious plan, and were remarkable for durability.