We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh.
Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner,
or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which
was very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the
waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was
a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the
Carpathians.

I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don't know
how I should be able to get on without it.

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.


I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the
country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia,
and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the
wildest and least known portions of Europe.

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 Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz,
the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I
shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when
I talk over my travels with Mina.