What Philately Teaches | Page 3

cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "L?sen", 1 ?re]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Nederland", 2? cent]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Danmark", 5 ?re]
[Illustration: Stamp, Arabic]
In other countries only inscriptions are used. This is especially the case with the Native States of India, in some of which as many as four languages are said to be employed on one stamp. These are interesting for their crude and curious designs but are not popular with collectors, probably because of our inability to read them.
[Illustration: Stamp, Arabic]
Afghanistan has varied the idea by placing on her stamps a tiger's head surrounded by a broad circle of inscriptions. Owing to the short comings of native art the tiger is more often droll than ferocious.
The method of cancellation used in that country is crude but effective. It consists in cutting or tearing a piece out of the stamp. Needless to say, it is not popular with stamp collectors.
[Illustration: Stamp, Arabic, Hindi]
Jhalawar, one of the Native States of India, has also varied the monotony of inscriptions by the addition of a sort of jumping-jack figure. By some writers this is claimed to be a dancing dervish and by others a Nautch girl. As pictured on the stamp the figure does not present the sensuous outlines which have always been attributed to those delectable damsels. Bossakiewicz, in his Manuel du Collectionneur de Timbres Poste says: "A dancing nymph, belonging to the secondary order of Hindu divinities and known as an apsara." Here is a problem which the next convert to philately may undertake to solve. You see there are still worlds to conquer, in spite of all the inky battles that have been waged by philatelic writers.
[Illustration: Stamp, "Diligencia", 60 centavos]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Escuelas", 1 centesimo]
The first stamps of Uruguay bear the inscription "diligencia" (stagecoach), thus plainly indicating the method then employed for transporting the mails. On some of the Venzuelan stamps is the word "escuelas" (schools), a portion of the revenue from this source being devoted to the maintenance of the state schools.
[Illustration: Stamp, "North Borneo", 12 cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Obock", 1893, 5 c.]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Sudan Postage", 1 millieme]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Correo Lima", 2 centavos]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Guatemala", 20 centavos]
[Illustration: Stamp, "New South Wales", 8 pence]
[Illustration: Stamp, "New South Wales", 1 shilling]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Newfoundloand", 5 cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Newfoundloand", 2 cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Postage W. Australia", 1 shilling]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Republic Liberia", 4 cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Republic Liberia", 1 dollar]
[Illustration: Stamp, "New Zealand", 6 pence]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Stamp Duty Tasmania", 6 pence]
The animal world has been thoroughly exploited by designers of stamps and many curious products have they shown us. This creature with the fine open countenance hails from North Borneo but it is said that similar creatures have been seen by earnest philatelists after an evening of study in the billiard room of the Collectors Club, followed by a light supper of broiled lobster and welsh rarebit. Very familiar to collectors are the camel of Obock and the Soudan, the Llama of Peru, the sacred quetzal of Guatemala--the transmigrated form of the god-king of the Aztecs--the lyrebird and Kangaroo of New South Wales. New Foundland has pictured the seal and cod fish, Western Australia the black swan, Liberia the elephant and rhinocerous, and New Zealand the curious bird called the apterix, which is wingless and clothed in hair instead of feathers. Tasmania shows us her animal freak, the platypus paradoxus, the beast with a bill, first cousin to our tailors and butchers, all of whom are beasts with bills. Our own country has added to the philatelic "zoo" by placing a herd of cattle on one of the Trans-Mississippi issue. That it is a pretty picture cannot be denied but the connection between cows and postage stamps is not obvious.
[Illustration: Stamp, "New Brunswick Postage", 3 pence]
[Illustration: Stamp, Japanese, 1 sen]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Imperio do Brazil", 300 reis]
New Foundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have adorned their stamps with the heraldic rose, thistle and shamrock of the British Empire. Japan, ever artistic and ever a lover of the beautiful, has placed on her stamps the chrysanthemum, both as a flower and in its conventionalized form as the crest of the Imperial family. And Nepal has the lotus, sacred to Buddha. Brazil has shown us the brilliant constellation of the Southern Cross which sparkles in the tropic sky.
[Illustration: Stamp, "Malta", 5 shillings]
Many nations have used their coats of arms as appropriate decorations for their postal issues. On the five shilling stamps of Malta we find the Maltese cross, emblem of the Knights of St. John and reminiscent of the crusades.
[Illustration: Stamp, "Postes Egyptiennes", 5 piastres]
[Illustration: Stamp, [Greek: Hellas], 2 [Greek: drachmai]]
[Illustration: Stamp, [Greek: Hellas], 1896, 5 [Greek: drachmai]]
[Illustration: Stamp, [Greek: Hellas], 1896, 10 [Greek: drachmai]]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Fiji", 1 penny]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Labuan", 8 cents]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Congo", 40 centimes]
[Illustration: Stamp, "Congo", 10 francs]
Egypt has her sphynx and pyramids; Greece an artistic series of pictures of her famous statues and ruins.