many accompanied by their wives, while there was a fair sprinkling of
Russian ladies also bent upon hurrying home. An hour before the train
was due the platform was packed with a dense chattering, gesticulating,
singing, and dancing crowd. Many pictures have been painted of the
British exodus from Berlin upon the eve of war but few, if any, have
ever been drawn of the wild stampede from Britain to Berlin which it was
my lot to experience.

As the train backed into the station there was a wild rush for seats.
The excited Teutons grabbed at handles--in fact at anything protruding
from the carriages--in a desperate endeavour to be first on the
footboard. Many were carried struggling and kicking along the platform.
Women were bowled over pell-mell and their shrieks and cries mingled
with the hoarse, exuberant howls of the war-fever stricken maniacs
already tasting the smell of powder and blood.

More by luck than judgment I obtained admission to a saloon carriage to
find myself the only Englishman among a hysterical crowd of forty
Germans. They danced, whistled, sang and joked as if bound on a
wayzegoose. Badinage was exchanged freely with friends standing on the
platform. Anticipating that things would probably grow lively during the
journey, I preserved a discreet silence, and my presence was ignored.

The whistle blew, the locomotive screeched, and the next moment we were
gliding out of the station to the accompaniment of wild cheering, good
wishes for a safe journey and speedy return, and the strains of music
which presently swelled into a roar about "Wacht am Rhein." The melody
was yelled out with such gusto and so repeatedly that I hoped I might
ever be spared from hearing its strains again. But at last Nature
asserted herself. The throats of the singers grew hoarse and tired, the