the centre of one side of a sheet, and the middle row of which
was watermarked COLONIES, while the upper and lower rows bore
the Crown and C.C. Recent printings of some of the values of
Gambia show the blocks printed sideways on the sheet, in which
case each stamp will not show a complete watermark; and of
these again I have seen a block with the vertical division of
the sheet running across the central row."

In addition the stamps have been found with the watermark reversed,
indicating that occasionally a sheet has been fed into the press the
wrong side up. Inverted watermarks of this Crown and C.C. type are
also to be found.

Of this issue, which comprises the same two values--4d. brown and 6d.
blue, imperforate--we get the following variations in the watermark--

Crown C.C. upright (Fig. A).
" inverted (Fig. C).
" reversed (Fig. B).
Portions of the words CROWN COLONIES.
Bars (i.e., division lines of the panes).

The gum shews the same variation--white and yellow--as in the original
issue. The 4d. stamp varies in colour from deep brown to pale brown;
the 6d. deep blue to blue, the solid colour in this case presenting a
very mottled appearance.

Again, both values are known with the embossing doubly impressed.

[page 22]

Very few copies of the 4d. of this issue examined shew the spot on the
hair, but in the sheet of the 6d. (plate I.) there are faint spots on
stamps Nos. 1, 4, 5, 9, 12 and 13.

No. 11 on the same sheet shews the curl and sub-curl joined.

The date of issue of these watermarked stamps is uncertain, but the
6d. was chronicled in _Le Timbre Poste_ for December, 1874. The
4d. was not recorded in any of the contemporary magazines, and was
probably not issued until some time after the higher denomination.

[Illustration: Fig. A.]

[Illustration: Fig. B.]

[Illustration: Fig. C.]

[page 25]

CHAPTER IV.

Issue of 1880.

Together with a number of other colonial possessions, Gambia was
admitted to the Universal Postal Union on January 1st, 1879, and
in June of the following year (1880) a more comprehensive series of
postage stamps was issued, all modelled after the same fashion as
the two denominations which had done service in the Colony for the
previous twelve years. The convenience of perforation was adopted
at the same time. The new series comprised the following values, the
shades being given in the approximate order