e.
The stage was ready. The next thing to be done was to raise the curtain
which hid it from Catharine's eyes.

It was early in the year 1787 that the empress began her journey towards
her Utopian city, to receive the homage of its citizens and to exhibit
to the world the magnificence of her reign. Great projects were in the
air. Poland had just been cut into fragments and distributed among the
hungry kingdoms around. The same was to be done with Turkey. Joseph II.
of Austria was to meet the empress in Kherson to consult upon this
partition of the Turkish empire; while Constantine, grand duke of Russia
and grandson of the empress, was to reign at Byzantium, or
Constantinople, over the new empire carved from the Turkish realm. Such
was the paper programme prepared by Potemkin and the empress, the
minister doubtless smiling behind his sleeve, his mistress in solid
earnest.

And now we have the story to tell of one of the most marvellous journeys
ever undertaken. It was made through a thinly inhabited wilderness,
which to the belief of the empress was to be converted into a populous
and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as
by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches,
whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of
day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old
Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season before
proceeding towards its goal.

As it went on, the whole country became transformed. The deserts were
suddenly peopled, palaces awaited the train in the trackless wild,
temporary villages hid the nakedness of the plain, and fireworks at
night testified to the seeming joy of the populace. Wide roads were
opened by the army in advance of the cortege, the mountains were
illuminated as it passed, howling wildernesses were made to appear like
fertile gardens, and great flocks and herds, gathered from distant
pastures, delighted the eyes of the empress with the appearance of
thrift and prosperity as her vehicle drove rapidly along the roads. To
the charmed eyes of those not "to the manner born" the whole country
seemed populous and prosperous, the people joyous, the soil fertile, the
land smiling with abundance. There was no hint to indicate that it was a
desert covered for the time being by an enamelled carpet.

[Illustration: SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM.]

The Dnieper reached, the empress and her train