The train was due to leave at ten o'clock. At a quarter before ten exactly, as I looked through the window screen I saw it gliding along the platform into the bay. A bell rang, and my porter came to take me to my place. As I stepped across the platform I saw about a hundred people preparing to get into the train. Where they had been up to this moment I do not know. There was no bustle. Each person took his place as if he had been taking his seat in a concert-room. There was no examination of tickets. Every one had booked his seat the day before, and every seat was numbered. The train was made up of five passenger coaches, a post-office van, a baggage wagon, two wagons for perishable goods and a special coach for soldiers (privates). One of the passenger coaches painted red bore a large Roman II., indicating that it was a Second Class coach, another painted yellow was marked III., two others painted green were marked IV., and another painted chocolate was marked V. There was no First Class coach on this train, as there were no persons of the First Class travelling by it. Neither, apparently, were there any Sixth or Seventh Class passengers. Every one travelling wore a sort of uniform overcoat of the same colour as that of the coach in which he travelled. It was only later that I was able to recognise readily and without confusion the colours appropriate to the seven social classes, but I did notice that the Fifth Class wore chocolate, the Fourth green, the Third yellow and the Second red or scarlet. I was taken to a compartment temporarily set apart for foreigners in the Third Class coach. There was still ten minutes before the train started, so I looked out of the window and saw the porters and minor officials storing the luggage, putting in the mails, and so forth. The perishable goods had already been loaded, in a siding I suppose. No one was permitted on the platform except the railway servants, so that the station looked almost deserted. Presently the stationmaster, dressed in a green uniform with chocolate facings and a bit of gold braid on his cap, came on the platform and looked at his watch. Then, exactly as the big bell of the station clock began to strike ten, he waved a signal and the train glided out. In a few minutes we were going at 100 miles an hour, and in less than a quarter of an hour the speed increased to 150. The track was smooth, but I began to feel dizzy when I looked out of the window. There was little to be seen, for every now and then we passed between embankments that shut out the view. I pulled down the blinds, turned on the light and tried to read. In a short time I had almost forgotten the immense speed at which we were travelling.