Chapter 1 of Dracula by Bram Stoker This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dracula by Bram Stoker Chapter 1 Jonathan Harker's Journal Kept in Shorthand 3rd of May, Bistritz. Left Munich at 8.35pm on the 1st of May, arriving at Vienna early next morning. Should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late. Budapest seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train, and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we would and would start as near as the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the west and entering the east. The most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. We left in pretty good time and came after nightfall to Klosenberg. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up in some way with red pepper, which is very good, but thirsty. Mem, get recipe for Mina. I asked the waiter, and he said it was called Paprika Händel, and that it was a national dish. I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathian. 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 a search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania. It had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fall to have some importance in dealing with the nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the 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. And as there are no maps of this country, as yet to compare with our own ordnance survey maps, 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. 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, Magars in the west, and Sezleclis in the north. I am a guy among the latter who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magars conquered the country in the eleventh century, they found the