Has heard no lover lift the latch,
And, waking, only hears the ballet
Danced by rain-drops on her thatch.
Were all our ills which others tell us,
And all that darken fancy’s dream,
Confined to those we knew befell us,
How few our real woes would seem.
Tuesday, Dec. 22. A courier arrived last evening from the north, with the startling intelligence that forty or fifty mounted Californians had sallied from the hills in the vicinity of San Francisco, and captured several Americans; among them Mr. Bartlett, chief magistrate of that jurisdiction. Capt. Weber, as soon as the news reached him on his station at San José, started with fifty mounted volunteers in pursuit; and fifty more have left Monterey this morning under the command of Capt. Maddox. One party is to come down upon them from the north, and the other is to cut off their retreat to the south. The plan is well laid, and we shall know in a few days if it has been executed with any decisive results.
Wednesday, Dec. 23. It becomes us to keep a pretty sharp look-out here, or another hostile party may take advantage of the absence of the forces under Capt. Maddox, and pay us a flying visit. No one here can tell when these visits are to be expected; when you feel most secure, they are, perhaps, nearest the door. In all other lands, war bears on its front such a flaring banner that you see its terrific insignia long before you feel its presence; but here, it comes like the descent of the eagle from his mountain eyrie—you hear not his pinions till they beat the air in his reascending: you look for the milk-white lamb that frolicked in your flock, and it is gone. Peril here, like death, borrows half its terrors from the secrecy in which it wraps its footsteps.
Thursday, Dec. 24. As soon as the sun had gone down, and twilight had spread its sable shadows over the hills and habitations of Monterey, the festivities of Christmas Eve commenced. The bells rang out a merry chime; the windows were filled with streaming light; bonfires on plain and steep sent up their pyramids of flame; and the sky-rocket burst high over all in showering fire. Children shouted; the young were filled with smiles and gladness; and the aged looked as if some dark cloud had been lifted from the world.