No sooner had the vessel struck the landing at Nye's Ranch than all the passengers, some forty or fifty in number, as if moved by a common impulse, started for an old adobe building, which stood upon the bank of the river, and near which were numerous tents. Judging by the number of the tents, there must have been from five hundred to a thousand people there. When we reached the adobe and entered the principal room, we saw a map spread out upon the counter, containing the plan of a town, which was called "Yubaville," and a man standing behind it, crying out, "Gentlemen, put your names down; put your names down, all you that want lots." He seemed to address himself to me, and I asked the price of the lots. He answered, "Two hundred and fifty dollars each for lots 80 by 160 feet." I replied, "But, suppose a man puts his name down and afterwards don't want the lots?" He rejoined, "Oh, you need not take them if you don't want them: put your names down, gentlemen, you that want lots." I took him at his word and wrote my name down for sixty-five lots, aggregating in all $16,250. This produced a great sensation. To the best of my recollection I had only about twenty dollars left of what Col. Stevenson had paid me; but it was immediately noised about that a great capitalist had come up from San Francisco to invest in lots in the rising town. The consequence was that the proprietors of the place waited upon me and showed me great attention. Two of the proprietors were French gentlemen, named Covillaud and Sicard. They were delighted when they found I could speak French and insisted on showing me the town site. It was a beautiful spot, covered with live-oak trees that reminded me of the oak parks in England, and the neighborhood was lovely. I saw at once that the place, from its position at the head of practical river navigation, was destined to become an important depot for the neighboring mines, and that its beauty and salubrity would render it a pleasant place for residence. In return for the civilities shown me by Mr. Covillaud, and learning that he read English, I handed him some New York papers I had with me, and among them a copy of the New York "Evening Post" of November 13th, 1849, which happened to contain a notice of my departure for California with an expression of good wishes for my success.[2] The next day Mr. Covillaud came to me and in an excited manner said: "Ah, Monsieur, are you the Monsieur Field, the lawyer from New York, mentioned in this paper?" I took the paper and looked at the notice with apparent surprise that it was marked, though I had myself drawn a pencil line around it, and replied, meekly and modestly, that I believed I was. "Well, then," he said, "we must have a deed drawn for our land." Upon making inquiries I found that the proprietors had purchased the tract upon which the town was laid out, and several leagues of land adjoining, of General--then Captain--John A. Sutter,