MONDAY, JAN. 25. The wash-tub mail is still further establishing its claims to confidence. Its intelligence is no bubble breaking over its rim, and evaporating into thin air; but a chain of facts carrying with them the destinies of a nation. All that has reached us through this singular mail is confirmed this morning by a California youth who has arrived from below. He left los Angeles some fourteen days since, and states that previous to his departure, Com. Stockton had entered the town at the head of the American forces from San Diego. He says there had been some pretty hard fighting, in which the Californians had suffered severely. Col. Fremont, he states, was within two days’ march of the Pueblo, and in a position to cut off the retreat of the Californians to the north. He believes that most of them have surrendered. This intelligence is, in every essential particular, identical with that which reached us several days since through the washerwomen of this town. They must have obtained it from those who swept through to the north when the rout below first commenced. TUESDAY, JAN. 26. A Californian made me a present to-day of a wild goose which he had just killed. I value the gift for the giver, rather than any benefit it may be to me. I live mostly on mush; such a thing as a wild goose never floats within the shadows of my domestic dreams. Even the drum of the partridge is rarely heard there. Wild geese prevail here in the greatest abundance; every lagoon, lake, and river is filled with them. They fly in squadrons, which, for the moment, shut out the sun; a chance shot will often bring two or three to the ground. The boys will often lasso them in the air. This is done by fastening two lead balls, several yards from each other, to a long line, which is whirled into the air to a great height. In its descent the balls fall on opposite sides of the neck of some luckless goose, and down he comes into the hands of the urchin hunter; sometimes a pair are brought down, but one generally manages to effect his escape. The boy little heeds the domestic relation that may have subsisted between them; and yet there is something in killing the mate of even a goose that might be relieved in the thought that no other goose loved him. CHAPTER XI. ARRIVAL OF THE LEXINGTON.—THE MARCH TO LOS ANGELES, AND BATTLE OF SAN GABRIEL.—THE CAPITULATION.—MILITARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CALIFORNIANS.—BARRICADES DOWN.