Little coasting schooners, with their white wings spread to a listless breeze, and their tiny arms, Sails and hulls pic- Mired on the sky-coloured waves, are idly rocking on the bay. Out at the mouth of the harbour an incomihgsaiJ.standinglikea white column iv the channel, is slowly moving inward, and a spot of canvass beaming in the »un rays turther out in the distance still, announces another manner returning from his home on the sett. The driiting cloud-flakes, blown over the 'harbour, give tho bay a whito, silvery colour, then float away, and the water asaumes a green ocean cast, to be followed by tho deep shade pi the sky. A WATER SOEINK. To notice the change of colour, and moving bars of light, *trcaked in coloured reins and moving spots of sunshine, glinting liko a cathedral window, then turned into a lake of indigo, as the patches of cloud*, like •ilver islands overhead cast their sun-lit reflections on the waters of the bay, is a pretty »ight to buhold, reminding me of the »tory of tho fairies unrobing ; as the bay change* its drw»*-ribboned now in white, thon, turned to green *nd red, tlien donning her toilet of rind blue. Again, a paddling .ittla ste»m«r crosses tho bay, leaving a 'streak of blaok «mok« trailing behind. A narrow neck of land run* into the buy, rUina into * mound at it* head, and along )b> «»«tein point the cottage* of tho North Shore are »Itting along tht beach-aide, with their im»ee« and tta— mirrored In the watory depth* of the bay. Ju»t now a cloud come* over the harbour, and tho bright surface of the bay is turned Into sheets of liquid «ilTer, and the necks, mounds, inlots, and capet assume a darker shade as the shadows pass over the broken landHcape. ... Between tho mountain knolls the harbour openß ontits watery gateway into the ocean that .preads off into ; the sky. Northward, rise the timbered mountains towards tho Uay of Islands, covered black with forests, in whose womled fastnesses abound the veiim of kauri gum, and where grow the forests of kauri trees which contain such a mine of wealth to tho shipping of Auck- JaU ' MOUNT*IN BCBNE. 