CÓRDOBA
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Santiago del Estero, on the North-West by the Province of Catamarca, on the West by the Province of La Rioja and San Luis, on the South by the Territory of the Pampa Central and the Province of Buenos Aires, and on the East by the Province of Santa Fé.
Córdoba is the second Province of the Republic in point of wheat and linseed production, being not far behind Buenos Aires in this regard. Its maize production, however, does not amount to one-third of that of either Buenos Aires or Santa Fé, while in oats it about ties with the latter. In live stock it ranks fourth among the Argentine Provinces, though it has less than half the number possessed by Entre Rios and only about half of that of Corrientes. In the matter of population it ranks fourth among the Provinces of the Republic, with about one-third that of Buenos Aires.
As one travels towards the ancient capital of this Province one begins to realize that the cosmopolitan delights of the city of Buenos Aires do not reflect the soul of the Republic: the soul that fought for its liberty under the blue sky and warm sun of 25th of May, now over a hundred years ago. One begins involuntarily to dream of the Gaucho Wars and to feel the atmosphere of wilder bygone times amid the steep water-cut and cacti-crowned banks of the five great rivers which traverse the land from west to east. And when one gets to “The Learned City” the illusion is not dispelled. Only one extremely modern-looking Hotel in a corner of the Plaza jars; the rest of old Córdoba exhales the magnolia-scented atmosphere of Old Colonial days. The Cathedral, the University (founded in 1613) and the innumerable churches, the bells of which all clang incessantly on Feast-days, all help to preserve in the old part of the City of Córdoba an atmosphere of the Middle Ages, when monasteries and learning were indissolubly connected. And of monks and nuns, brown-robed, black-robed, white-robed and blue-robed, many there be in Córdoba. Wherever one looks, across the Plaza, up one street or down another, one sees them walking in twos or small groups with a uniformly measured step which, as one instinctively feels, nothing could hurry nor retard. And the black-coated citizens of Córdoba walk silently with eyes downcast. But there is fierceness behind those cast-down eyes and quick hot blood in the veins of those men in black; as anyone would soon find out to his cost were he suspected of too close enquiry into local political ways and means.
The writer speaks feelingly on this subject since when, a few years ago, he was visiting Córdoba with a quite natural but equally innocent curiosity for the old-world corners of the City, he unfortunately disclosed in conversation with an eminently respectable-looking, immaculately dressed gentleman that he, the present author, was a journalist.
Soon afterwards his adventures began. He was molested in indirect ways, and finally invited to pay a visit to the Central Police Station. There he was given cigarettes and coffee by the Comisario, who floridly apologized and expressed his deep regret and shame for the treatment an honourable stranger had received. It was, however, but a series of regrettable accidents arising from unfortunate error of certain bad characters who were now in durance vile in consequence.
Here he rang a bell and ordered the answering policeman to bring in the culprits. They were duly brought in and recognized.
“Now,” said the Comisario, “you will have no more trouble. Besides,” he added, “one of our plain-clothes men will accompany you in future wherever you go—for your better protection.”
The plain-clothes man certainly obeyed orders; so persistently that the whole why and wherefore at last dawned on my confused brain.
The intention was to worry me so much in a polite quasi-legitimate fashion that I could have no ostensible cause of complaint; but, at the same time, so that I should incontinently quit the ancient City of Córdoba in disgust. The reason for all this was the fact that, having nothing better to do on the evening of my arrival, I had wandered into the basement of my Hotel and there found a person who looked like, and indeed was, a leading local politician running a roulette to catch the nickels of a crowd of working men. At that time the roulette was the scarcely concealed vice of the town, rife in the back room of every bar.
It is an illegal game in Argentina, as elsewhere except Monte Carlo, and shortly after my visit it was the cause of a great outcry and scandal in which several Provincial High Officials were involved.
I was a journalist and, therefore, dangerous. So a course of delicate hints to me to get out had been planned and executed.
Following the gambling scandal, a leading Opposition politician was shot dead in his carriage on the high road a short way outside the city. When I read this news I was glad that I had not persisted in seeming to pry into cupboards containing Córdoba’s official skeletons, and for similar reasons I am still somewhat shy of Córdobese gentlemen with downcast eyes and soft, measured tread.
All that, however, belongs to Old Córdoba. The parts of the city called New Córdoba and Alta Córdoba are replete with palatial residences as fine and as new as residential palaces need be.
The City of Córdoba is not only the traditional seat of learning par excellence of the Republic, it is also, as a consequence of old-time associations no doubt, its chief centre of clerical influence.
Córdoba is intensely and, if one may be permitted to say it, intolerantly Catholic. Were it not subject to the democratic laws of a modern and very go-ahead Republic one would hardly be surprised to find disciplinary institutions of an Inquisitorial type still in full swing in this old-world city of South America. As it is, there is no doubt of the predominance of priestly influence in Provincial politics. Much of the best freehold property in the city is owned by Monastic Orders or by the Society of Jesus.
Most of the Province consists of a large plain; which, naturally, is the chief productive area. But Córdoba has hills famous for the purity of their air and great resorts for consumptive patients. Alta Gracia, with its fine hotel, golf links, etc., has of late years acquired a very favourable reputation as a place in which anyone may spend a very pleasant and healthful week or so.
In the North-West of the Province are great salt marshes, in and around which only a very scanty and meagre vegetation flourishes, and in the North-East is the Mar Chiquita, a large and, in parts, very deep lake, the waters of which are salty like those of the sea. Hence its name.
Córdoba also possesses large forests, as yet chiefly exploited for building timber and firewood.
Rio Cuarto, on the river of that name, is the next largest town in the Province in point of population, but it is likely soon to be altogether surpassed in importance by Bell Ville, on the Central Argentine Railway, a rapidly advancing centre of the cereal trade, and some day also, probably, by Marcos Juarez, comparatively close to it on the same line.
Goats abound in the North of Córdoba. Land values have increased and are increasing; especially in the most fertile regions in the South-Eastern parts of the Province.
Córdoba has given and continues to give much attention to irrigation and possesses one of the largest semi-natural reservoirs in the world, certainly in South America, in the Dique San Roque, which is formed by means of a wall of masonry placed across the mouth of a mountain gorge. Its capacity is 260,000,000 cubic metres, and its operation is completed by a basin situated some fifteen miles from and below it, from which the water flows through two great primary canals. The area so irrigated is some 130,000 hectares. Other large irrigation works are in course of construction, and more still are under consideration.
Córdoba has also a large share of industrial enterprise, of which the chief are lime and cement works, ornamental and other tile manufactories, potteries, sawmills and butter factories.
The hills of this Province have some practically unexploited mineral deposits. The area between the city of Córdoba and the Provinces of Santa Fé and Buenos Aires is covered with a close network of railway lines, in great contrast (as may be seen by a glance at the railway map) in this respect with the more Northern parts of the Province.
There has for a long time been talk of a canal to run from near the city of Córdoba to a point close to the port of Rosario, utilizing the surplus waters of the Primero, Segundo and Tercero Rivers.
There is something almost incongruously prosaic about the naming, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, of the rivers which traverse a Province in which so much of the old romantic atmosphere lingers.
The Alfalfa fields of Córdoba are in extent second only to those of Buenos Aires, covering an area equal to more than half that devoted to this forage in the latter Province.