Such an event is deemed very glorious to the family of the victim, and that of her husband. They are proud of her in proportion to the calmness and heroism with which she meets her fate. If the resolution of the poor creatures fail them at the last moment, they bring irretrievable disgrace on their connections. If they try to go back, they are often put to death by relatives, or expelled from their caste, and forever cut off from all intercourse with relations or friends. But notwithstanding religious enthusiasm, and the prejudices of education, they are not always resigned to their cruel fate. In 1796, the widow of a Bramin determined to be burned with the body of her husband. It was dark and rainy when the pile was lighted, and when she began to be scorched by the flames, she crept away unperceived, and hid herself in the brushwood. It was soon discovered, and they dragged her forth. Her own son insisted that she should be thrown on the pile again, or else hang herself. She pleaded hard for life, but pleaded in vain. The son said he should be expelled from his caste, unless the sacrifice were completed, and that either he or she must die. Finding her still unwilling to destroy herself, the son and his companions bound her limbs and threw her on the funeral pile, where she quickly perished. The bones are carefully collected in vases, and thrown into some sacred river. The next day the Bramins sprinkle milk and consecrated water over the place, and sometimes erect a chapel. It not unfrequently happens that a number of wives are burned at once with the dead body of their husband; and a willingness to make this sacrifice is said to be still more a point of honor with mistresses than with wives. When the chief Rao Lacka died, fifteen mistresses perished with him, but not one of his wives offered to sacrifice herself. A Koolin Bramin of Bagnuparu had more than a hundred wives, twenty-two of whom were consumed with his corpse. The fire was kept kindled for three days, waiting the arrival of the numerous victims. Some of them were forty years old, and others no more than sixteen. Nineteen of them had seldom even seen the husband with whom they consented to perish. It is said the widows of Bramins less frequently immolate themselves than women of the other superior castes, because the Bramins often take wives without any inclination for the union on either side. In 1819, a girl of fifteen determined to become a suttee.[6] The person to whom she had been betrothed died when she was six years old, and, according to custom, she had ever after remained unmarried. No entreaties could prevail on her to consent to live. She asked for a fiddle which had belonged to her betrothed, and jumped into the flames.