We left San Francisco, Feb. 9th, on the good ship _Orizaba_, for southern California and Arizona. She was a first-class side-wheel steamer, with good accommodations, and belonged to the California Steam Navigation Company--a corporation that then monopolized or controlled all the navigable waters of California, besides running coast-wise lines North and South. She was one of a line, that ran semi-monthly to San Diego and return, touching at Santa Barbara and San Pedro, and seemed to be paying very well. We might have gone southward from San Francisco to San Josè by railroad, and thence by stage to Los Angelos and Fort Yuma; but our long stage-rides, from the Missouri to Salt Lake and thence to the Columbia, had worn the romance off of stage-coaching, and we infinitely preferred to proceed by steamer. It was a superb day, with sea and sky both "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue"--a day of the kind Californians always mean, when they brag about their climate--as we flung off our lines at San Francisco, and steamed down the harbor broadside with the Golden Age _en route_ for Panama. We passed by Alcatraz and through the Golden Gate neck and neck, with the decks of both vessels crowded with excited passengers; but once across the bar, the _Orizaba_ drew steadily ahead, and long before sunset we left the _Golden_ _Age_ hull down astern. I don't say this was a race, indeed. Perhaps their leaving together was quite accidental. But the _Orizaba_ soon showed her mettle, all hands were eager and excited, and her officers were in ecstasies at the results.