The married couple then enter the house, where the near relatives are all waiting in tears to receive them. They kneel down before the parents of the lady, and crave a blessing, which is bestowed with patriarchal solemnity. On rising, the bridegroom makes a signal for the guests to come in, and another for the guitar and harp to strike up. Then commences the dancing, which continues often for three days, with only brief intervals for refreshment, but none for slumber: the wedded pair must be on their feet; their dilemma furnishes food for good-humored gibes and merriment. Thus commences married life in California. This stream, it is to be hoped, is much smoother than its fount. TUESDAY, NOV. 24. Monterey has been for the last two days remarkably quiet. The excitement occasioned by the battle on the Salinas has sunk into a dead calm. They who fell have received Christian burial; and they who survived have departed, some to find graves elsewhere. The great tragedy of life here is so filled with incident that it requires no stage effect. It is the visionary sword which eluded the grasp of Macbeth, turned into flashing steel. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25. A Californian in trouble, often disregards the suggestions of national pride and personal resentment, and seeks succor where it can best be had. One of them who had been dangerously wounded in the late engagement, came into Monterey this morning, and applied to our surgeon to have the ball extracted from his hip. He seemed to think that as he had been disabled by one American, it was only right and proper he should be restored by another. He will then probably be off to fight us again. Nor does this in him argue a want of gratitude. He seeks the field to encounter his foes, much on the same principle that you do the wood to hunt wild game. You level your rifle at the hawk, not because he has injured you, but partly to exercise your skill, and partly because he is a saucy fellow, screeching about and frightening the other birds. I never yet saw the little king-bird chase a hawk, or the sword-fish pursue a whale, without a sentiment of delight. Neither have harmed me; but I hate all tyrants, whether they are on wings, fins, or legs. THURSDAY, NOV. 26. Some of the shopkeepers here have been so long in the habit of smuggling under the former high rate of duties, that now they hardly know how to give up the trick, though there is very little motive for pursuing it. I caught a Frenchman to-day endeavoring to evade the municipal duty on rum. He had a hundred subterfuges, and flew from one to another, like a frightened catbird in the bush. His words fell so thick and fast that they quite covered up his falsehoods; the leaves of a wind-shaken tree in autumn conceal the nuts which fall with them to the ground. It is idle to expect honesty in a man who resorts to it only in the failure of his craft and cunning. His integrity is like the religion of some sailors—breaking out in shipwreck.