The “Rundreise,” or “Round-trip-ticket,” is an institution in itself. On it you may travel, for example, from London to Constantinople and return to London by way of any route or in any direction. You may go to Paris, to Cologne, and up the Rhine to Frankfort; thence to Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Constantinople, and return by way of the Levant and the Riviera. There are a hundred different routes by which to go and come, a hundred interesting parts of countries to pass through, a hundred beautiful cities to visit. You may travel by rail or by boat, first, second or third class—according to the price paid—but you must return to the starting-point, or, at all events, you will have paid for that privilege, and it concerns but you if you do not care to avail yourself of it. The one serious proviso of the “Rundreise ticket,” and one that will be at once a drawback to some and a boon to others, is that no luggage may be checked on it. But the less luggage and the smaller the assortment of clothes taken for travel in the Balkans the better—providing, of course, your mission does not necessitate your being dined and wined by the nobility and diplomats. The “Hapag ticket” is, in the language of the Magyar, of the same general specie as the “Rundreise.” And in contemplating such a trip through the Southeast of Europe, two important questions naturally arise: Why? and why not the Balkans? To the first there are many convincing replies. The Balkan States have been, for two thousand years, the “Powder Box” of Europe. The Greeks, and, after them, the Romans, came and saw and conquered; the Venetians, for a time, swept all before them along the coast of the Adriatic; for five hundred years the Turks, thirsting for the blood of the Christians, have attacked, have been repulsed and have attacked again, shocking the entire world with their atrocious massacres. One need not hunger for history in travelling through the Balkans. In addition, its peoples are primitive, their customs are curious and their methods mediæval. They are backward and unsophisticated in everything but war—and that word “war” has been the slogan in the “Near East” for centuries. Furthermore, the territory has been left uninvaded by the frantic tourist,—in fact, an American is regarded as a wonder to look upon, and his harmless little camera, aimed promiscuously, is as apt to conjure up a crowd of stary-eyed, open-mouthed, inquisitive natives as the perpetration of a political tragedy. And woe is he who cannot speak German, or at least enough of that language to ask the questions necessary to travel, for the days of “personally conducted” tours through the Balkans have yet to come. He may speak French fluently but, exclusive of the diplomatic circles, it would be as much to his advantage to adhere to American slang. The exceptions, however, invariably prove the rule, and it is when English is least expected to be heard that its utterance is the most heartily appreciated.