here is the record.
The fact is as we give it. But a girl of fifteen, in the warm
latitudes of South America, is quite as mature as the northern maiden
of twenty-five; with an ardor in her nature that seems to wing the
operations of the mind, making that intuitive with her, which, in the
person of a colder climate is the result only of long calculation and
deliberate thought. She is sometimes a mother at twelve, and, as in
the case of La Pola, a heroine at fifteen. We freely admit that
Bolivar, though greatly interested in the improvisatrice, was chiefly
grateful to her for the timely rebuke which she administered, through
her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of
her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the
same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he
certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her
hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to
inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, or comprehend her
resources. From the moment of his meeting with her she became a woman.
She was already a politician as she was a poet. Intrigue is natural to
the genius of the sex, and the faculty is enlivened by the possession
of a warm imagination. La Pola put all her faculties in requisition.
Her soul was now addressed to the achievement of some plan of
co-operation with the republican chief, and she succeeded where wiser
persons must have failed in compassing the desirable facilities.
Living in Bogota--the stronghold of the enemy--she exercised a policy
and address which disarmed suspicion. Her father and his family were
to be saved and shielded, while they remained under the power of the
viceroy, Zamano, a military despot who had already acquired a
reputation for cruelty scarcely inferior to that of the worst of the
Roman emperors in the latter days of the empire. The wealth of her
father, partly known, made him a desirable victim. Her beauty, her
spirit, the charm of her song and conversation, were exercised, as
well to secure favor for him, as to procure the needed intelligence
and assistance for the Liberator. She managed the twofold object with
admirable success--disarming suspicion, and under cover of the
confidence which she inspired, succeeding in effecting constant
communication with the patriots, by which she put into their
possession all the plans of the Spaniards. Her rare talents and beauty
were t