As embossing evenly over a large area presented considerable difficulties, the plates were made up of fifteen stamps only, in three horizontal rows of five stamps. The plates for both processes evidently fitted each other with precision, though in the printing occasionally the embossing is slightly out of register. The paper is white wove and has no watermark, and the stamps were not perforated. There are two colours of the gum, one being the usual clear white: the other is a pale yellow colour, which may, however, be due to climatic influence, particularly as it is a noticeable feature of a number of the later issues. The colour of the 4d. value varies in shade from a deep chocolate brown to brown and pale brown. The 6d. is pale to deep blue. There is a quite pale shade which is very rarely met with, most of the so-called "pale blue" specimens being an intermediate shade better described as "blue." The sheets of both values shew one printer's guide dot in each side margin, opposite stamps No. 6 and 10 respectively (plate I). Both values are known with the embossing shewing a distinct double impression. There are some peculiarities in these stamps which, although their significance is uncertain, it may not be well to overlook. [page 18] Firstly, there frequently occurs throughout the embossed stamps of Gambia a small spot of colour on the back hair, which in later embossed stamps becomes a large spot, and even develops into a coloured indentation from the coloured circular ground. In this issue the spot, when it occurs, is usually quite small, two copies of the 6d. examined shewing it somewhat enlarged. Secondly, there are noticeable varieties of the pendant curl at the back. The normal design shews a fairly thick wavy curl with a hair branching out from it into the space between the curl and the neck. This sub-curl, as we may call it, is occasionally missing, broken, or as in No. 11 on the imperforate 6d. sheet (plate I), the curl and sub-curl have joined together, giving a very different appearance to the back hair. There are also varying lengths of the main curl.