CHAPTER VII
LOG OF THE “DEMETER.”
Varna to Whitby.
Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land.
On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands … two mates, cook, and myself (captain).
On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m.
On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago.
On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out.
On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was something, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.
On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was something aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead.
On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deck-house, as there was a rain-storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companion-way, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from stem to stern.
Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing.
oh wow I missed this… looking up some of these words…
“Backsheesh” means alms, tip, or bribe in that part of the world. in this case its technical legality is questionable, but probably accounted for as a cost of doing business.
In this map the Bosporus is in red and the Dardanelles in yellow, both part of the Ottoman Empire in that era. Varna is on the coastline to the north, just a little bit off that map I think; it’s currently part of Bulgaria which looks like at the time was a constitutional principality, under Ottoman sovereignty but operating independently. Cape Matapan is in the southernmost tip of Greece, just south of Spaartaaa. B-movie idea: “Dracula Meets the Spartans”.
Here’s a full map of the journey. Minor future spoilers if you just look at the map, potentially larger spoilers if you click on the icons for some of the places they haven’t been yet. From the sounds of it the creator is still updating so there aren’t too many spoilers for now.
The captain is not Australian. “Mate” is First Mate, the 2nd in charge of the ship.
Larboard is the left side of the boat. These days it would be called port side, to make it easier to distinguish from the starboard (right).
In retrospect, I feel it would have been better to read these entries as they happened, rather than as the captain wrote them down. It would give us a much greater sense of the growing foreboding on the ship, I think, similar to the weirdness with Renfield’s pets.
The dates get weird here. All of this comes from within the newspaper clipping dated 8 August, but this part itself is a clipping of the Demeter’s captain’s log which was included in the newspaper clipping which was in turn included in the novel. I’m following the lead of Dracula Daily and including it on the date it was originally written (in-world), so the captain who wrote his log after he realised things were weird enough to need writing down, wrote all of the 6 July through 18 July entries on the 18th.
