File:A Hill Coolie Girl (without stamps).jpg

English: Collotype, Undivided back,13.70 x 8.60cm

"The professional photographers of Darjeeling generated innumerable prints depicting those whose toil supported the lifestyles of the colonialists in their homes and businesses, and who created products they loved to consumer," writes Claire Harris in her essay Photography in the "Contact Zone" (Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands, Marcus Viehbeck Ed., 2017, p. 99). "Frequently repeated subjects included the "coolie" (or porter), the tea carrier, the rickshaw puller, the gardener, the cook, the milkman, the orchid seller, the weaver, and even the curio seller. Both photographers and their clients appear to have revelled in the portrayal of the 'types' who reduced the white man's burdens to that he could concentrate on the 'pleasures of imperialism' (Said 1993)."

One of these cards was sent to Miss Maude T. Owens, Aetna Spring, Napa County, California, postmarked Darjeeling March 9 1906: "Darjeeling, March 8th, 1906 Best regards from CAC." Napa Country itself was a rural area at the time, showing how far the postcard could reach after a month of travel.