Note 59 — Chapter III · JOURNEY TO DONGTSE.

January 9.—While we were breakfasting Rinpoche came in, and again spoke of her hard work and of the merciless treatment of her mother-in-law. I asked her if her husband was not fond of her. “Oh, sir,” she said, “we two are like one soul and body; but he is most of the time at Shigatse, where he is the Dahpon’s steward” (Nyerpa59). She told me that she had just heard that her cousin, the Rajah of Sikkim, was coming to Tibet to get married. If his mother came with him, she could surely persuade her to take her with her to Chumbi for a couple of months. She also said to me that her mother-in-law ought not to have given her such a high sounding name as Rinpoche (“the Jewel”), for it is a name given to incarnate lamas and chiefs; but I answered, to her evident pleasure, that Rinpoche was a most appropriate name for handsome and accomplished women.