"They are hardy, stout men, particularly those of the Catteywar and Cutch districts. Their usual dress is a petticoat round the waist, like that of the Bheels, and a cotton cloth wrapped round their heads and shoulders, which, when they wish to be smart, they gather up into a very large white turban. In cold weather, or when drest, they add a quilted cotton kirtle, or “lebada,” over which they wear a shirt of mail, with vant-braces and gauntlets, and never consider themselves as fit to go abroad without a sword, buckler, bow and arrows, to which their horsemen add a long spear and battle-axe. The cotton lebada is generally stained and iron-moulded by the mail shirt, and, as might be expected, these marks, being tokens of their martial occupation, are reckoned honourable, insomuch that their young warriors often counterfeit them with oil or soot, and do their best to get rid as soon as possible of the burgher-like whiteness of a new dress. This is said to be the real origin of the story told by Hamilton, that the Coolies despise and revile all cleanly and decent clothing as base and effeminate. In other respects they are found of finery; their shields are often very handsome, with silver bosses, and composed of rhinoceros-hide; their battle-axes richly inlaid, and their spears surrounded with many successive rings of silver. Their bows are like those of the Bheels, but stronger, and in better order; and their arrows are carried in a quiver of red and embroidered leather."