The Fakirs at Benares, On the Bank of the Ganges. India.
An rare French postcard of Benares [Varanasi], featuring fakirs debating and listening with the ghats in the background.
1910-1919
Paschendaele Nov. 1914 Cavaliere indienne [Indian Cavalry]
![Paschendaele Nov. 1914 Cavaliere indienne [Indian Cavalry]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/indian-soldier_0.jpg?itok=NaOCI3g- "Paschendaele Nov. 1914 Cavaliere indienne [Indian Cavalry]")
This postcard by the French artist Emile Dupuis honoured the Indian soldiers who fought with the Allies in in what is better known as the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium, an early World War I battleground where some 160,000 German soldiers died.
Home Rule League, Madras
The early 20th-century Home Rule League demanded self-government for the whole of India from British rule and was particularly active between 1916-18. Many Indian leaders supported this movement including the famous nationalist, Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
Kandy
Elephants Bathing. Queen's Hotel. Temple of the Sacred Tooth.
A multi-image card popular around the turn of the century, where one type of postcard sought to compress as many views of a place into a small space. Murray's Handbook for India, Burma and
Watson's Hotel, Bombay.
Lynne Withey writes in Grand Tours and Cooks Tours (London, 1998), about the growth of the Western tourist trade in the 1890s, that "apart from a few first-class establishments in major cities, most hotels were barely acceptable by Western standards.
Darjeeling. Kangchenjunga. No. 1
"Darjeeling is a hillstation and Sanatorium, situated on the lower slopes of the Himalayas.
A Ferry Steam Boat on the River Indus at Mari-Indus
This does not seem like a fancy Indus river steamer. It is after the heyday of the Indus steamer business that actually never really displaced the boatmen's traffic along the Indus and other river systems in Punjab, UP and Sindh.
Master's Whisky
These kinds of offensive postcards seem to have been part of series by both Higginbotham's and their main competitor in South India, Spencer & Co.
A Rodiya Woman Carrying Water, Ceylon
Plate & Co., like many Ceylon-based firms, published semi-nude postcards of women, more common here than even in South India, including this card with a nicely placed purple stamp.
Bangalore. The Jumma Masjid Old Poor House Road.
[Original caption] The Jummas Masjid, Old Poor House Road. Jumma Masjid means "Friday Mosque" they say, and so it is not surprising that more than one Indian temple bears the name.
