Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina. What ought they to be in China.

I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.

What ought they to be in China. He went, but immediately returned with a letter.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. 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. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. 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. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion. Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty.