The Balkan Express is the show train of the world. Never has there been a train with such grave responsibilities. It might well be called “the Publicity Train,” for its object at present is to advertise German victory and German thoroughness. Later it has sterner work to do. It is probably the handsomest train in Europe, and beyond doubt has been designed by the Germans with the object of impressing the thousands of people of various nationalities who gaze on it in wonder twice a week on its way from Berlin to Constantinople and twice a week from Constantinople to Berlin. The admiration of the Turks is tempered with alarm, for the Turk is no fool, and he sees that the efficiency which has enabled the Germans to reach Turkey may be the very barrier that hinders them from ever leaving it. The Balkan-Zug, as it is called in the Central Empires, is, however, a source of unqualified delight to Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and the rest of the people who see it on its journey. Its name is blazoned in three-foot letters on each wagon. Engine and carriages are decorated with flags and flowers, and every passenger wears in his buttonhole a German flag on which appear the words “Balkan-Zug” and the date. I had originally intended to join the Balkan Express at Constantinople, but as it would not be starting for two or three days I had booked my place upon it, securing my ticket at Constantinople, with the intention of boarding it at Belgrade, but circumstances had decided otherwise. When purchasing my ticket I had an illustration of the seriousness of the money question in Constantinople. Eight months previously when I was there gold was given at the banks in return for cheques, that, however, had developed into a shortage not only of gold but of silver, as I have explained, and for my ticket which really cost 870 piastres (£8), I had to pay the equivalent of £12 about, owing to the decrease in value of the Turkish £. [Illustration: MY TICKET FOR THE FIRST BALKAN EXPRESS TO RUN FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO BERLIN AND VIENNA] My ticket for the Balkan Express, the outside of which is reproduced here, is an illustration of German economy and also of German fallibility. Surely a nation that is spending millions of money each day to achieve its object could have afforded the few hundred marks required for printing a special ticket for the Balkan-Zug. The tickets are the old sleeping-car tickets in German, with the words “Balkan-Express” printed across in English. Possibly this is due to a breakdown on the part of the printer entrusted with the preparation of the new ticket, but it would certainly have been more in keeping with German methods had there been prepared not only an elaborate ticket but a souvenir of the journey. It must be remembered that this was the first journey of the Balkan Express west, that is, from Constantinople to Berlin, and consequently it was historic.