Francisco Hernández de Córdoba

“ The surrounding district produces sugar, tobacco and coffee, Córdoba being one of the principal coffee-producing centres of Mexico. It also manufactures cotton and woollen fabrics. The town is regularly laid out and built of stone, and contains several handsome edifices, chief of which is the old cathedral. Córdoba was a town of considerable importance in colonial times, but fell into decay after the revolution. The railway from Vera Cruz to Mexico, which passes through it, and the development of coffee production, have helped the city to recover a part of its lost trade. ”

“ If these be puritans, these men and women, with their heritage of war, privation, pioneering—they whose ancestry is Islam, the Cross, the promised Zion—long since has the hard fruit ripened. They are firm and condignly whole within their city whose maze of streets is whole within the mountains....
This evening, Córdoba, released from day, is going to the Bull-Ring. There is no moon; the bowl of the arena holds a winey night in which the stars are bubbles of effervescence. The seat tiers are deep. Men and women clamber noisily from perch to perch. ”

“ The kingdom of Cordoba, in its diminished and enfeebled state, continued to exist until A.D. 1236, when its proud capital fell an easy conquest to Ferdinand III. of Castile, who, to merit the saintly title which Spanish history has conferred upon him, drove the turbaned inhabitants from their homes, and rendered the beautiful city a wilderness of brick and mortar. ”

“ Juan had also sold the small dagger of Moorish design. It had come from the town of Cordoba (kôr ́dō̍-vä) , once an important center. The famous Mosque of Cordoba, with its striped arches, was built by the Moors. But it has since been made into a Christian church.
King Charles V is supposed to have said to the Christian builders, "You have built what can be found anywhere, but you have [Pg 92] spoiled what cannot be found anywhere else.
Cordoba is a white city of twisting streets. There are golden knobs upon some of the doors; ragged beggars fill the streets ”

“ Seneca the Stoic, Averroës the Commentator, Moses ben Maimun first rationalist of the Jews, Lucan, and Spain’s greatest lyric poet, Luis de Góngora ... such are the light of Córdoba. It is the home of the most perfect Arab Knight, the quiet Al-Mansor who, ruling Spain, decreed Sunday to be a day of rest in deference to the Christians.
Córdoba lies within tumultuous mountains and a lazy river. It is a poise of mountains and river. It is a kingly city within chaos; it is masculine in a feminine land. The Christian Copts brought their woman worship to Seville ”

“ Both have performed prodigies of valour in the war. The reckless giant called Hernado de Pulgar sits lower—he who rode into the city of Granada at dead of night, and fixed on the door of the great mosque a tablet with the letters, Ave Maria, then departed as he had come before the Moors had time to seize him; the famous Gonsalvo de Cordoba, to become El Gran Capitan, and Viceroy of Naples, in this war flashing his maiden sword, already marked by nature in features and bearing as a master of men; the Conde de Tendilla, hero of Alcala ”

“ The people are dark and silent like the dusk. The sky is pale with a glow of convalescence. The houses, serried in the curving streets, are hot. The evening has a magic, it throbs and swells with tacit fervors. The whole of Córdoba is quick under the glow of night. The stone streets are flesh, willfully rigid, of a spirit possessed with the desire to dance. And in the dance are darker intimations: cries, ravage, conquest. But the slow streams of men and women are the sole expression. ”

“ Some of the old buildings, in the narrow Moorish streets, possess the same kind, of sketchy beauty; but the houses of the other parts of the city seldom exceed two stories in height, from which circumstance Cordoba is, perhaps, the most sultry place in Andalusia.
The inhabitants are a diminutive race, and the most ill-looking I have seen in Spain. ”

“ To the north, beyond the brown Guadalquivir, lay the distance-blue foothills of the Sierra Morena, dying away in the northern horizon.
It was twenty-one o'clock by her station timepiece when I descended at Córdoba from the train I had boarded in the dusk at Tocina. A mile's stroll brought me to the city itself, and a lodging. Poor old Córdoba has fallen on parlous times. Like those scions of nobility one runs across now and then "on the road," it is well that she has her papers to prove she was once what she claims to have been. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On reaching some high table land, about five miles from Cordoba, the glorious capital of the western caliphs, and the splendid valley of the Guadalquiver, first burst upon the sight. The view is less extensive, perhaps, but far more striking than that on approaching Granada from Alhama; and when arrived at the edge of the range of hills bordering the rich valley, it becomes perfectly enchanting. The bright city, with its venerable cathedral, its Moorish bridge, its castle and royal palace, is offered to the spectator’s close inspection. ”

“ Here the chief pilot said to the commander, "Down from Cuba Island, in this sea of the west, my heart tells me there must be rich lands; because, when I sailed as a boy with the old admiral, I remember he inclined this way." Suddenly the vision of Córdoba enlarged. Here might be something better, nobler, more profitable even than kidnapping the poor natives. Despatching a messenger to Velazquez, Córdoba asked, in case new discoveries were made while on the way to catch Indians, for permission to act as the governor's lieutenant in such lands. ”

“ Because it is the oldest city in Argentina and has inhabitants with pedigrees, and because of the society attracted to it, Cordoba regards itself as the aristocratic centre of the Republic. In the neighbouring hills are sanatoria, like Jesu Maria, much favoured by the people of the plains who need a change. ”

“ The churches, cloisters, convents, and religious institutions of the city are innumerable, and it is estimated that over six thousand of its inhabitants are connected with the religious orders and organizations. Córdoba is one of the cleanest cities in America, and it is difficult to find a place where civic pride, park system, cleanliness of house exteriors, public buildings, pavement, hotels, cafés, department stores, banks, residences, religious edifices, and water supply taken as a whole can equal that of it. ”

“ It is well known, Señor, that this Mulata of Córdoba, being a very beautiful woman, was in close touch with the devil. She dwelt in Córdoba—the town not far from Vera Cruz, where coffee and very good mangos are grown—and she was born so long ago that the very oldest man now living was not then alive. ”

“ The climate is very salubrious, though the rain does not fall in sufficient quantity. There are no foreigners in the town, nor even in the province, except a few French and two or three English: the government architect is a Frenchman, who possesses both wealth and influence." Cordoba must at that time have been a much pleasanter place of residence than Buenos Aires, and possibly is so still. With peace, renewed prosperity has visited the town, and it now has a population of about sixty thousand. It is distant 435 miles from Buenos Aires, and is an important railway centre. ”

“ Its prosperity was soon assured by extensive sugar and tobacco plantations, and it received also a share of health-seekers from Vera Cruz, [62] as did the more important town of Orizaba, to the west, where sanitary facilities still attract people. [63] Córdoba received its name from the viceroy, whose title of Guadalcázar was also perpetuated in that of a mining town founded in 1614 north-east of San Luis Potosí. ”

“ But as living beneath the sun brings early old age to men and women, so cities which have had a few centuries of constant sun glare get a drowsy mediævalism which sister cities in more temperate climes must have long ages to acquire. The aroma of the Church and of scholasticism permeates Cordoba. In many respects it is quite modern, with its big new hotel, where the band plays in the restaurant whilst you are dining, and its streets lit with electricity and electric tramcars jangling their way through the squares and plenty of taxi-cabs on the ranks. ”

“ Some few Americans, and other foreigners, have established themselves at Cordoba, and lead a dreamy existence in the shade. At one time it was the scene of an extensive coffee-planting by ex-Confederate generals, but these attempts were not successful. I was fortunate enough to be conducted about by an old gentleman, of German birth, who had lived here forty years. He had the tastes of a naturalist and farmer, and the existence pleased him. He took in his hand a machete from the wall, and we set forth for a walk, with much improving discourse by the way, in the fields and plantations. ”

“ This is very characteristic of Córdoba, whose university (founded in 1605 by the Bishop of Tucumán, and sharing with that of Lima the distinction of being the oldest in South America) has done so much to maintain the spirit of times past, at the very threshold of the most insistent modernity. Little though I admire the Roman Catholic Church as I find it in South America, it seems to me that the Argentine is the better for its Córdoba. ”

“ Its situation is picturesque in the extreme, the bright city being on the edge of a rich and fertile basin, encased by wild and lofty mountains. The asperity of the country to the south is such indeed, that, until within the last few years no road practicable for carriages penetrated it, and Jaen has consequently been but very-little visited by travellers; for Granada and Cordoba, being the great objects of attraction, the most direct road between those two places was that which was generally preferred. ”

“ Córdoba; Lat. Corduba) , the capital of the Spanish province of Cordova, on the southern slopes of the Sierra de Cordova, and the right bank of the river Guadalquivir. Pop. (1900) 58,275. At Cordova the Madrid-Seville railway meets the branch line from Almorchón to Málaga. The city is an episcopal see. Few fragments remain of its Moorish walls, which were erected on Roman foundations and enclosed a very wide area, now largely occupied by garden-ground cleared from the ruins of ancient buildings. ”

“ Here we find ourselves in a city that has caught but little of the new spirit of the Argentine and rather prides itself on being the shrine of the ancient spirit. For the first time, too, we can witness something resembling scenery, as the country in the neighbourhood of Córdoba, tired of being flat and uninteresting for so many hundred miles, begins to take on some picturesque inequalities, and at no great distance beyond the antique city, the Hills of Córdoba, wooded and picturesque, come gratefully to the eye. ”

“ At all times Cordoba is beautiful; the verdant slopes of the Sierra Morena, rising precipitously from the very gates, look down serenely on the strife of rival peoples; lovely retreats, dotted with white quintas, farms, mills, vineyards, and olive-grounds; the rugged summits rising westwards to the limits of Lusitania; the lazy Guadalquivir flowing at their base, through grassy plains dark with orange and myrtle. ”

“ To this fierce and brutal man the Moorish conspirators entrusted the work of making known this decree in the Alpujarras, and the summoning of a numerous assembly to elect a king, assuring them that from that moment the choice of the Alpujarras should be confirmed in the Albaicin.
This chosen man was D. Hernando de Valor, a very rich Moor of the Alpujarras, a descendant of Mahomet through the families of Aben-Humeyas and Almanzores, Kings of Córdoba and Andalucia. D. Hernando's ancestors, as they lived in a place in the mountains called Valor, had taken the name. ”

“ This dam also serves to irrigate the valley below, and to furnish power for the electric plant which provides Córdoba with light and electric power. In and about the city there are several industrial establishments which have sprung into existence since the opening of the first railway in 1870. The surrounding country is irrigated and well cultivated, and produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables. ”

“ Thus Cordoba, which had already ceded the pre-eminence to Seville, fell, unaided, into the hands of the Castillian in the very year that Granada became the capital of a formidable Mohammedan kingdom; and Valencia, only two years later, was also finally added to the conquests of the Christians. Even the city of Jaen, though fiercely contested for by Mohammed Alhamar, was at last ceded by treaty to his better-supported antagonist, San Fernando, who then, with consummate policy, forming an alliance with the king of Granada, induced him to assist in the subjugation of Seville. ”

“ The N.W. part of the province is traversed by an isolated mountain system made up of the Córdoba, Pocho and Ischilin sierras, which extend for a distance of some 200 m. in a N. and S. direction. These ranges intercept the moist winds from the Atlantic, and receive on their eastern slopes an abundant rainfall, which gives them a strikingly verdant appearance in comparison with the surrounding plains. West and N.W. of the sierras are extensive saline basins called Las Salinas Grandes, which extend into the neighbouring provinces and are absolutely barren. In the N.E. the land is low and swampy ”