The return journey was better. I had intended to leave Munich by the carriage for Augsburg on Friday, but on Thursday afternoon I heard the two parties had agreed to let a special train run for Munich merchants exhibiting at the Leipzig Fair. Having done nearly all that I came for, this chance was not to be missed. So I paid Levien, the Communist Commissioner, a farewell visit, and got a special permit from him to go by the Leipzig train. Leaving Munich about four with a train load of Munich merchants and their assistants, we went very slowly round by Landshut to Nuremberg, with nothing more sensational than searches for arms first by Red then by White Guards. The special arrived at Nuremberg about dawn, and was to wait six hours there; so finding a train was leaving for Bamberg, the seat of the Hoffmann Government, I went on there, and spent the morning in the picturesque old town, then the "Weimar" of Bavaria. Like Weimar, the station was barricaded, and a pass was required to enter the town. Like Weimar, the town was worth entering, for food was plentiful. Having seen the Premier, I got back to pick up the Leipzig special. But the railway officials had other views, and there was no Red Guard to overrule them. My Communist permit was useless, and there was no time to get one from the Bamberg Government. So I had to see the special steam out. This might have meant a day's delay, as Bavarian passenger traffic was by now also suspended, the Bohemian coal having been cut off. I was lucky in getting on in a wooden box hitched on to a regular dachshund of a goods train, it was so long and slow. It crawled gasping up into the Thuringer Wald, and there after dark ten miles from anywhere lay down with no sign of life but an occasional sigh. After some hours a Prussian engine came down, and pulled it over the ridge, and we got clear of Bavaria at Probstcella about midnight. Here there was a great row between the Prussian and Bavarian railwaymen. The Prussians complaining the Bavarians kept them up to all hours by being always late and the Bavarians saying it was the bad coal the Prussians sent them. Our small party, headed by some Bavarian officers, profited, because we backed the Bavarians, who in return insisted on our being taken on with the train. Behind the Prussian engine we developed a surprising turn of speed, and rattled along expecting at every station to be turned out or shunted until we got into the main line at Halle. A judicious change at a way station into a passenger train that overtook us, and three hours' standing up in a carriage with fourteen people, a large dog, two goats, and a baby, brought me to Berlin about two on Saturday afternoon. Nor was this a unique experience. On my last journey home the locomotive broke down and had to be changed three times before we got to Hanover.