The portraits in the state-room of the palace immortalize the features of fierce-looking, dark-faced generals, with old-fashioned high-standing collars of gold-braid, and green uniforms. Strange and unfamiliar names are printed beneath these portraits, and appear again painted in gold letters on a roll of honor which hangs from the ceiling, and which faces a list of the famous battles for independence. High on this roll of honor are the names “General O’Leary” and “Colonel Fergurson,” and among the portraits are the faces of two blue-eyed, red-haired young men, with fair skin and broad chests and shoulders, one wearing the close-clipped whiskers of the last of the Georges, and the other the long Dundreary whiskers of the Crimean wars. Whether the Irish general and the English colonel gave their swords for the sake of the cause of independence or fought for the love of fighting, I do not know, but they won the love of the Spanish-Americans by the service they rendered, no matter what their motives may have been for serving. Many people tell you proudly that they are descended from “O’Leari,” and the names of the two foreigners are as conspicuous on pedestals and tablets of honor as are their smiling blue eyes and red cheeks among the thin-visaged, dark-skinned faces of their brothers-in-arms. [Illustration: LEGISLATIVE BUILDING, CARACAS] At one end of the room is an immense painting of a battle, and the other is blocked by as large a picture showing Bolivar dictating to members of Congress, who have apparently ridden out into the field to meet him, and are holding an impromptu session beneath the palm leaves of an Indian hut. The dome of the chamber, which latter is two hundred feet in length, is covered with an immense panorama, excellently well done, showing the last of the battles of the Venezuelans against the Spaniards, in which the figures are life-size and the action most spirited, and the effect of color distinctly decorative. These paintings in the National Gallery would lead you to suppose that there was nothing but battles in the history of Venezuela, and that her great men were all soldiers, but the talent of the artists who have painted these scenes and the actors in them corrects the idea. Among these artists are Arturo Michelena, who has exhibited at the World’s Fair, and frequently at the French Salon, from which institution he has received a prize, M. Tovar y Tovar, A. Herrea Toro, and Cristobal Rojas. [Illustration: THE PRESIDENT’S BODY-GUARD OF COWBOYS]