If any female neighbor tries to console her, she answers: “Ah, mother, the heart takes no advice. Was this a child to be forgotten? He had a forehead like a king! Since it was born the master never staid in the house; he was always walking about with the child in his arms! I nourished and reared him--where is he gone?” While mourning in this way, they sometimes beat their foreheads, tear their hair, and roll about, as if in agony. Hindoo wives never call their husbands by name, but always say, “the master.” Very singular customs prevail among the people called Garos. If a man’s wife prove unfaithful, he cannot obtain divorce, unless he chooses to give her all the property and children. A woman, on the contrary, may part from her husband when she pleases, and by marrying another person, convey to him the whole property of her former husband. The children go with her, but their rank is decided by that of the father. If the wife has a lover, the husband may indeed kill him, but he incurs the resentment of all the man’s relations, and the woman would be very likely to revenge herself by transferring the property to a new husband. Divorces are, however, said to be rare. When a chief dies, his heir is any one of his sister’s sons, whom his widow may choose as a successor. If the youth is married, he immediately separates from his wife, who takes all his private fortune and his children; he marries the widow, and receives the wealth and rank of his predecessor. When the old lady dies, he is at liberty to choose a young wife, who, if she survive him, will, in her turn, select one of his sister’s sons. The wife of a chief, when she divorces her husband, is obliged to choose one from the same noble family. The red turban and bell-metal bracelets, which are bestowed with great ceremony on the new chieftain, do not always make him contented with a partner so much older than himself. One, who was almost a boy, complained to an Englishman, with great simplicity, that he had married a toothless old woman, while his poor cousin had a pretty young wife, with whom he could play all the day long. The Bramins, by a peculiar custom, often take wives against their own will. If a father has a marriageable daughter, on whom he wishes to see conferred the privileges belonging to a Bramin’s wife, he invites the Bramin to his house, and introduces the girl to him; she respectfully offers her hand to the unsuspecting visiter, and the moment he takes it, her father begins to repeat the genealogy of his family. This constitutes a legal marriage, and there is no way of escape from it.