It will offend no true Venezuelan to-day if it be said of his country that the most interesting man in it is a dead one, for he will allow no one to go further than himself in his admiration for Bolivar; and he has done so much to keep his memory fresh by circulating portraits of him on every coin and stamp of the country, by placing his statue at every corner, and by hanging his picture in every house, that he cannot blame the visitor if his strongest impression of Venezuela is of the young man who began at thirty-three to liberate five republics, and who conquered a territory more than one-third as great as the whole of Europe. In 1811 Venezuela declared her independence of the mother-country of Spain, and her great men put this declaration in writing and signed it, and the room in which it was signed is still kept sacred, as is the room where our declaration was signed in Independence Hall. But the two men who were to make these declarations worth something more than the parchment upon which they were written were not among the signers. Their work was still to come, and it was much the same kind of work, and carried on in much the same spirit of indomitable energy under the most cruel difficulties, and with a few undrilled troops against an army of veterans. It was marked by brilliant and sudden marches and glorious victories; and where Washington suffered in the snows of Valley Forge, or pushed his way through the floating ice of the Delaware, young Bolivar marched under fierce tropical suns, and cut his path through jungle and swamp-lands, and over the almost impenetrable fastnesses of the Andes. [Illustration: STATUE OF WASHINGTON DECORATED WITH FLORAL WREATHS BY THE VENEZUELANS] Their difficulties were the same and their aim was the same, but the character of the two men were absolutely and entirely different, for Bolivar was reckless, impatient of advice, and even foolhardy. What Washington was we know. The South-American came of a distinguished Spanish family, and had been educated as a courtier and as a soldier in the mother-country, though his heart remained always with his own people, and he was among the first to take up arms to set them free. Unless you have seen the country through which he led his men, and have measured the mountains he climbed with his few followers, it is quite impossible to understand the immensity of the task he accomplished. Even to-day a fast steamer cannot reach Callao from Panama under seven days, and yet Bolivar made the same distance and on foot, starting from the South Atlantic, and continuing on across the continent to the Pacific side, and then on down the coast into Peru, living on his way upon roots and berries, sleeping on the ground wrapped in a blanket, riding on muleback or climbing the steep trail on foot, and freeing on his way Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and finally Peru, the home of the Incas.