Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?” “Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.” She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door.

Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.” (Mem., get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands.