"Marla is an excellent township, inhabited by a community of Charans, of the tribe Kachhela, who are Banjaras (carriers) by profession, though poets by birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous, were not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of their office which converted our Bardais into Banjaras, for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to their goods, and saved them from all imposts; so that in process of time they became the free-traders of Rajputana. I was highly gratified with the reception I received from the community, which collectively advanced to me at some distance from the town. The procession was headed by the village-band, and all the fair Charanis, who, as they approached, gracefully waved their scarfs over me, until I was fairly made captive by the muses of Marla! It was a novel and interesting scene: the manly persons of the Charans, clad in the flowing white robe, with the high loose folded turban inclined on one side, from which the mala, or chaplet, was gracefully suspended; the Naiks, or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image of the pitrideva (manes) depending therefrom, gave the whole an air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a skirt of dark brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff, with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the favourite churis, or rings of hathi-dant (elephant’s tooth), covering the arm, from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it. Never was there a nobler subject for the painter in any age or country; it was one which Salvator Rosa would have seized, full of picturesque contrasts: the rich dark tints of the female attire harmonizing with the white garments of their husbands; but it was the mien, the expression, the gestures, denoting that though they paid homage they expected a full measure in return. And they had it; for if ever there was a group which bespoke respect for the natural dignity of man and his consort, it was the Charan community of Marla."