Quote from Steve on October 10, 2021, 10:17 am

This lot are nice - if you collect Mozambique stamps! Again, much of this material is commonly see. However, I have spotted two that I do think I have seen before. That does not mean that they are not common, rather that this is not my specialist field. The stamps are on sheet 2, the 40c red and blue purple and the 70C 'ouro'. I do not recall ever having seen them but.... you can't remember everything!

All in all a good if limited starter. I like the strip of 3 and the pair. For me, buying multiples is better if it shows a better poistmark. Sadly, neither do. The 10c stamp on Sheet 1 showing ivory should be worth keeping, if only as a memento of elephants for future generation once the last African elephant has disappeared. Sheet 3 has a nice set of, I guess, of Lusitania holding a version of Luís de Camões epic of Portuguese voyages of discovery, the Lusiads. A character in the Lusiads is Adamastor, a vanquished Titan, who occupies the Cape Penisula massif.

See the image below. Credits to Tiago da Silva.

In his epic poem The Lusiads, the Portuguese poet Luiz Vaz de Camoes writes that as Vasco da Gama rounds Cape Point:

“… an immense shape
Materialised in the night air,
Grotesque and enormous stature
With heavy jowls, and an unkempt beard
Scowling from shrunken, hollow eyes
Its complexion earthy and pale,
Its hair grizzled and matted with clay,
Its mouth coal black, teeth yellow with decay.”

So, next time you visit Cape Point, spare a thought for the intrepid Portuguese who had to overcome their fear of the unknown to achieve what they did in sailing through the Cape of Storms.  Of course, the Khoi (Hottentots) who lived at the Cape could have told the Portuguese (had they not had reasons to dislike them, like being shot at with crossbows) that they should have no fear because as far as they the inhabitants of the Cape knew there was no bearded Greek classicist living among the tortoises at Cape Point. Chill out, man. Rook a little dagga. Leave your European paranoias at home. Relax. Open a 'cafe' below Table Mountain selling tobacco and arrack.