Boat bridges were common in the 19th century; not only the Ravi at Lahore, but the Hooghly in Kolkata, the Indus at Attock were all traversed by ancient boat bridges that rose or were washed away by floods, but could easily be managed and repaired.
Tea was one of those commodities that benefitted from the marketing that came with postcards, going back to the late 1890s.
A very early lithographic card, published by Gobindram Oodeyram, likely printed in India.
An early Italian or French postcard celebrating or advertising the city of Bombay. It also features a bicycle, then becoming popular in the city.
This postcard of the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka [Ceylon] was made from a photograph by Charles Scowen, one of the great photographers of the 19th century, as was likely taken in the 1870s.
John Campbell Oman (1841-1911), author of The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (1903) describes the incident that made him take it upon himself to write this encyclopedic work towards the end of his life.
Note the rich character on this man's face in an image by M.V. Dhurandhar, one of India's most exceptional and prolific early 20th century painters and postcard artists.
Sent to Master E.
While we now believe that the temples date to the Pallava King Narasimharavan around 630 CE, much about their origins remains obscure. This is an embossed postcard, with the relief lines meant to simulate an old oil painting.
[Original caption] Seven
Another exuberant, deftly rendered very early postcard by Paul Gerhardt, chief lithographer at the Ravi Varma Press in Bombay. Note the simply drawn mosque minarets, the colors that pull you in while the cart pushes out into the foreground space.
Compare this hand-colored view to the identical more detailed black-and-white postcard of the old fort and mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam.
