The voyage began with the passengers embarking in Amsterdam or Rotterdam for departure. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the postcard developed as a tourist medium, also in colonial contexts. This card was penned on board the steamship Goentoer in 1920 by Johan Anton de Wolf, who writes to his mother: ‘Everything is quite fine here. Anton is having great fun on board and gets on very well with the babu. We’ve been lucky to get a good cabin.’ A ‘babu’ was an Indonesian nanny. Babus sometimes accompanied families travelling to the Netherlands on leave, which earned them the name ‘sea babus’. Their voice is rarely heard in surviving sources. This silence prompted the making of the film Ze noemen me baboe (They Call Me Babu, 2019).
Postcard of ‘Rotterdamsche Lloyd. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Postvaart’. J.A. de Wolf, on board the SS Goentoer, to M.J.M. de Wolf-Montijn, Ginneken, 1920. [Collectie De Wolf. Or 27.100-2 4]