SATURDAY, FEB. 6. We have another rain; not a cloud is to be seen; but the whole atmosphere is filled with a thick mist, which dissolves in a soft perpetual shower. It seems as if nature had relinquished every other occupation, and given herself up to this moist business. She calls up no thunder, throws out no lightning; she only squeezes her great sponge, and that as quietly as a mermaid smooths her dripping locks. SUNDAY, FEB. 7. Com. Shubrick has ordered the barricades removed. Thank God! we are at last relieved of martial law. It is one of the greatest calamities that can fall on a civilized nation. It tramples on private rights, trifles with responsibility, and cuts the conscience adrift from its moorings. Men are thrown into this eddy of excess, and then act like rudderless ships in a tempest-tost sea. Years will elapse before the moral sentiments which have been unhinged by military violence can be restored. Even California, where revolutions come and go like the shadows of passing clouds, will long show the traces of the one which has now passed over her. Its lightning has shivered the tree before the fruit was ripe, and blasted a thousand buds that might have bloomed into fragrant beauty. MONDAY, FEB. 8. Much to the relief of the citizens, Com. Shubrick has given orders that the volunteers on service here shall be paid off and discharged. They are principally sea-beachers and mountain-combers, and some of them are very good men; but others seem to have no idea of the proprietorship of property. They help themselves to it as canvas-back ducks the grass that grows in the Potomac, or migratory birds the berries which bloom in the forests through which they wander. They hardly left fowl enough here on which to keep Christmas. Could dismembered hens lay eggs, they would have more chickens in their stomachs than they ever had dollars in their pockets. CHAPTER XII. RETURN OF T. O. LARKIN.—THE TALL PARTNER IN THE CALIFORNIAN.—MEXICAN OFFICERS.—THE CYANE.—WAR MEMENTOES.—DRAMA OF ADAM AND EVE.—CARNIVAL.—BIRTH-DAY OF WASHINGTON.—A CALIFORNIA CAPTAIN.—APPLICATION FOR A DIVORCE.—ARRIVAL OF THE COLUMBUS.