Ebook: With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple

Susanna Carson Rijnhart, (1868-1908), better known as Susie Rijnhart or "Doctor Susie," was a Canadian medical doctor, Protestant missionary, and Tibetan explorer. She was the second Western woman known to have visited Tibet, after Annie Royle Taylor. Rijnart wrote of her travel in the 1901 book "With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple."

Rijnhart gives an account in this book of her four years' residence on the Tibetan border, and of a journey into the far interior of the country undertaken in 1898. The pathetic feature of this journey is the fact that of the little party that started Mrs. Rijnhart herself is the sole survivor, her husband and little son having perished. Rijnhart has incorporated in her narrative many facts concerning the customs and social conditions of the Tibetan people.

Rijnhart has a wonderful story to tell, and she tells it in a way that reveals her true self. Firmer faith and calmer courage we have not found in any record of missionary heroism. Though the writer buried her only child, and was robbed of her husband, who left her alone in the wilds of Tibet while he went to seek help and never returned, she is yet able to write, “ Remembering his consecration I too can be strong and say, as I bring the story to a close, ‘God doeth all things well—the sacrifice was not too great.’ ” Mr. and Mrs. Rijnhart left America in the autumn of 1894, and made their way across China to Lusar, where they soon won the confidence of the people, and carried on their work of teaching and healing with great success. It is impossible to get a crowd of Tibetans to listen to a discourse. Evangelistic work consisted in talking with the people who came to visit them for medicine or out of pure curiosity. The Tibetans were deeply interested in the teaching of the New Testament, and the Bible school was delightfully encouraging. One of Mr. and Mrs. Rijnhart’s friends was a 'Buddhist saint, who spoke with the utmost confidence not only of the life he had lived before his present existence, but of a score of incarnations through which he had passed since he attained sainthood. After four years at Lusar and other places Mr. Rijnhart set his heart on visiting the neighbourhood of Lhasa, and on that journey he lost his life. His wife had to find her way alone to China. Some of her guides were men of the vilest character, from whom she could only protect herself by her pistols. That she escaped unharmed from the hands of such ruffians was almost a miracle. The story is one of intense interest, and the descriptions of Tibet and the Tibetans are not the impressions of a passing traveller, but of one who has known the people intimately and studied their religion closely for years. It is a book that fires one’s enthusiasm for the evangelization of Tibet.

Dr. Susie Rijnhart typified the independent and adventurous women, often missionaries, who were beginning to travel the world and practice a variety of professions. Her attempt to reach Lhasa seems to have been as much an adventure gone wrong as it was a Christian pilgrimage. Her book makes no mention of any converts to Christianity the couple made during their four years in China and Tibet.