SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
with a very high opinion of Bhutanese art and workmanship, which is both bold and intricate. It is a thousand pities that the present impoverishment of the country should give so little encouragement to the continuance of the old race of artificers. The head lama himself complained of the difficulty he was labouring under in completing the memorial to the late Rimpochi.
He then conducted us through the pine forest to the private residence of the late Dharma Raja, where from the top of the hill above there is a beautiful view. It is a perfect little dwelling, charmingly arranged, and full of fine painted frescoes and carved wooden pillars and canopies. We were shown into the room or chapel where the late Lama died and lay in state for some days. I noticed that my attendants and others who were allowed to enter kowtowed to the ground three times and to the altar, and three times to the daïs on which the Lama had lain, and from this I gathered that a high compliment must have been paid me by being taken into the room. We went back to the tent, where we found a lunch provided by the ladies of the Ta-ka Penlop and Thimbu Jongpen, who were related to the late Delai Lama. They pressed us warmly to stay the night, and though I should have liked to do so I did not find it possible to accept the invitation.
On my way back I visited the temples at Norbugang, and was very glad I did so, though the lower one looked so dilapidated and neglected from the outside that I almost resolved not to risk the steep and rickety ladders that do duty for staircases. Luckily I went in, and found the chapel was full of excellent specimens of both metal and embroidered appliqué work. I also found three kinds of incense in process of manufacture. It is a very simple process—merely a mixture of finely powdered charcoal, aromatic herbs, and rice-water made into a paste, then spread on the floor and cut into strips, rolled between the hands and formed into the sticks seen burning in the temples. The different qualities depend on the ingre-
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