war which Chili some years ago carried into Bolivia and Peru has
been marked in a special manner upon the postage stamps of Chili. As
in the case of our own troops in South Africa, so the Chilian troops
in Bolivia and Peru were allowed to frank their letters home with the
stamps of their own country. So also the Chilians further overprinted
the stamps of Peru with the Chilian arms during their occupation of
the conquered country in the years 1881-2. Chilian stamps used along
the route of the conquering army, and postmarked with the names of the
towns occupied, are much sought after by specialists. These postmarks
include Arica, Callao, Iquique, Lima, Paita, Pisagua, Pisco, Tacna,
Yca, etc.

And so the stamp collector may turn over the pages of his stamp album,
and point to stamp after stamp that marks, for him, some development
of art, some crisis in a country's progress, some struggle to be free,
or some great upheaval amongst rival powers. In fact, every stamp
issued by a country is, more or less, a page of its history.

[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]

VII.

Stamps with a History.

There are numbers of stamps that have an interesting history of their
own. They mark some official experiment, some curious blunder or
accident, some little conceit, some historical event, or some crude
and early efforts at stamp production.

What is known as the V.R. Penny black, English stamp, is said to have
been designed as an experiment in providing a special stamp for
official use, its official character being denoted by the initials
V.R. in the upper corners; but the proposal was dropped, and the V.R.
Penny black was never issued. For a long time it was treasured up as a
rarity by collectors, but now that its real claims to be regarded as
an issued stamp have been finally settled, it is no longer included in
our stamp catalogues. In the days of its popularity it fetched as much
as L14 at auction. It is now relegated to the rank of an interesting
souvenir of the experimental stage in the introduction of Penny
Postage.

Of curious blunders, the Cape of Good Hope errors of colours are
amongst the most notable. In 1861 the 1d. and 4d. triangular stamps,
then current, were suddenly exhausted, and before a stock could be
obtained from the printers in England, a temporary supply had to be
provided locally. This was done by engraving imitations of the
originals. Stereos were then taken, and made up into plates for
prin