Whitby Harbour
Whitby's picturesque harbor becomes the landing ground for a ghost-driven schooner, an immense escaped dog, and fifty boxes from Varna.
Story so far
Whitby shelters Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra among its abbey ruins, churchyard, harbor, and steep streets as a great storm approaches. The tempest drives crowds from the piers, fills the coast with fog and lightning, and culminates in the Demeter racing under full sail through the narrow harbor without a living hand at her wheel.
The ship grounds safely beneath East Cliff. An immense dog leaps ashore and disappears, the dead captain is removed for burial, and fifty boxes are delivered to a local solicitor. By morning a mastiff has been savagely killed and Mr. Swales lies dead in the churchyard with a broken neck, making the spectacular wreck the beginning rather than the end of the town's danger.
Appearance
A steep Yorkshire harbor beneath ruined abbey and old churchyard, battered by mountainous white-crested seas, gale winds, lightning, searchlight beams, and ghostly banks of sea-fog.
Role
Whitby is the English threshold crossed by Dracula's cargo, where a public maritime sensation immediately becomes private nocturnal peril.
Relationships
Sources — 2 recorded facts, by chapter
- Whitby's abbey ruins, crowded harbor, cliff-top graves, and open sea give Mina beauty, local lore, and gathering foreboding.
- Whitby's picturesque harbor becomes the landing ground for a ghost-driven schooner, an immense escaped dog, and fifty boxes from Varna.