Around 1900, when motorised traffic in the Dutch East Indies was virtually non-existent and the petrol age had not arrived yet, the sado – a light, two-wheeled vehicle – was a popular means of transport that served the same purpose as the modern-day taxi. In Ot en Sien in Nederlandsch Oost-Indië (Ot and Sien in the Dutch East Indies, 1911), a primer to teach children how to read, the two children are taken by an indigenous coachman driving such a carriage to a waterfall to paddle in the water and cool off. This was to change over the next decades. In a 1930s reprint of the book, the sado has been replaced by a car. This postcard is part of a series published in 1904 after water colours and drawings by the then well-known Dutch illustrator Johan Jacob van der Heijden.
Postcard showing a sado (dogcart) in Java, by J. van der Heyden. Semarang: G.C.T. van Dorp & Co., 1904. [KITLV 110973]