He went, but immediately returned with a letter. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. 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. 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. 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.

They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. 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. 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. 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.

At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind.

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. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. What ought they to be in China. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion. 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. 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. 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. What ought they to be in China. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist.

I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease. 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. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. 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. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. 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. All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. 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. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands.

What ought they to be in China. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. 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.