Reporter In Argentina 

 Gets Sentimental 

 Over Cordoba 



Mountains and Tolling 

 m Of Bells Provide Tinge 

 Of Excitement 



(No. 29 of a Series.) 



By W ft SHIPPEN, Jr., 



Star Staff Correspondent. 



BUENOS AIRES. — The purple 

 Sierras of Cordoba lie far behind us, 

 500 miles to the west, in the heart 

 of the Argentine. None of us, in all 

 probability, will 

 ever see them 

 again. 



Yet, I feel that 

 in months to 

 come I shall 

 often recall 

 them — a back- 

 ground for the 

 old cathedral 

 across the plaza 

 from our hotel, 

 a majestic wall 

 on the western 

 edge of the 

 pampas, and a 

 series of nerve- 

 tingling ShOCkS w - H Shippen. 

 for the motorist who traverses their 

 rugged contours. 



Yesterday, from a balcony at our 

 hotel, I watched the sun set behind 

 the ranges. It was an autumnal 

 spectacle accompanied by the chim- 

 ing of the Angelus from ancient bell 

 towers where pigeons fluttered to 

 roost. I'm afraid I felt pretty senti- 

 mental about it all. The Cordobans 

 had been more than kind to the 

 strangers in their midst, and we were 

 about to say good-by. 



The air was crystal clear to the 

 farthest rim of the mountains. Then, 

 with unbelievable suddenness, a 

 wind sprang up. Dust whirled m 

 from the cultivated pampas. The 

 landscape was blotted out, the cath- 

 edral across the plaza faded and dis- 

 appeared. The newly lighted lamps 

 of the square were yellow blurs. 

 Doors and windows were hurriedly 

 closed. 



Suffer No Embarrassment. 



If the Cordoban tourist officials 

 who were our hosts suffered any 

 embarrassment, they failed to re- i 

 veal it by word or sign. For days | 

 we visitors had been complimenting 

 the Argentines on their ideal fall 

 weather, clear, mild and sunny. We 

 drove to the station through dust- 

 choked streets. The ladies breathed 

 through dampened handkerchiefs 

 and the men coughed as discreetly 

 as possible. 



Our friends of Cordoba ignored the 

 dust to see us off. They stood under 

 a train shed swirling with the 

 opaque stuff and waved until the 

 final whistle blew. Such storms, I 

 am told, are fairly rare, and never 

 occur in the summer season of De- 

 cember, January and February, when 

 South American tourists fill the lux- 

 urious mountain hotels to ride, golf, 

 swim, dance and play tennis, or 

 gossip in rocking chairs on wide 

 terraces. 



The pampas that extend from the 

 mountains to the sea grow grass 

 lush enough to fatten cattle the 

 year round. Grain fields are tilled 

 with a prodigal hand. The abun- 

 dance is reminiscent of our own 

 prairies. Seeing the dust storm, 

 we wondered if the Argentines, in 

 years to come, will suffer the same 

 disaster which befell our farmers 

 of the Middle West. 



Monument to American. 



On the pampas between the 

 Sierras and the city of Cordoba 

 stands a monument which seems 

 to have captured the fancy of the 

 people— a modernistic, marble shaft 

 more than 250 feet tall, tipped by 

 an airplane beacon. It is a lasting 

 memorial to the late Myriam Stef- 

 ford, a North American and the 

 first woman flyer of the Argentine. 



The flyer's husband, a wealthy 

 Italian resident, had the memorUi 

 erected on the spot where his wife 

 plunged to her death in 1935 while 

 on a good -will tour of Argentine 

 provinces. Her plane fell in a 

 sudden storm. The woman flyer is 

 buried in the memorial, along with 

 a fortune in her personal jewelry, 

 according to local belief. An in- 

 scription reads, "He Who Desecrates 

 This Tomb Is Cursed." 



Part of the broken airplane is 

 mounted near the tomb, draped in 

 the colors of the Argentine and tne 

 United States. On a pillar of stone 

 outside the monument is the wreck- 



age of the airplane engine. The 

 perpetual light in the shaft is sup- 

 posed to guide airplanes and diri- 

 gibles to safety. 



Between the beacon and the city 

 lies a government school for train- 

 ing army flyers and a thriving air- 

 plane factory. In Cordoba it is 

 curious to hear the chimes from 

 more than 140 old churches mingling 

 with the drone of military airplanes 

 in the sky. 



Tradition Still Holds. 

 The city plaza, according to Dr. 

 William M. Mann, typifies the best 

 of innumerable others in Latin 

 America and Spain. Dominated by 

 the huge, 17th century cathedral and 

 flanked by official buildings, it has 

 its central equestrian figure of a 

 liberator, its formal gardens, palms 

 and shrubbery, its bandstand for 

 evening concerts, and its prome- 

 nades where young people stroll and 

 flirt. In Cordoba the old Spanish 

 tradition still holds— a chaperon 

 for every courtship— sometimes sev- 

 eral of them, according to rebel- 

 lious young blades accustomed to 

 the less-restricted ways of Buenos 

 Aires and Spain. 



The cathedral, with its bells of 

 100 tones, its ancient towers, dome 

 and weathered facades, is known 

 throughout this part of the world. 

 Lacelike grillwork depicts the Apos- 

 tles, and paintings by Raphael 

 and the old masters adorn the walls 

 above silver altars. An ancient 

 Jesuit monastery in the hills once 

 was connected with Cordoba by a 

 20-mile tunnel, now filled with rub- 

 ble. Traces of the masonry still 

 remain. The Jesuits built the tun- 

 nel as a precaution against success- 

 ful Indian raids. 

 Dr. Mann's greatest interest in 



r 



Cordoba was the zoo, occupying a 

 steep, winding canyon which, only 

 a few generations ago, was the 

 hideout of bandits bold and numer- 

 ous enough to stand off the soldiery 

 from their narrow defiles. The 

 zoo planners took full advantage 

 of the natural terrain. The steep 

 walls of the canyon are grown winh 

 more than 60 species of native 

 trees, palms and cactus, and ex- 

 hibition buildings merge into this 

 background. 



Zoo Director Impressed. 



The Washington Zoo director was 

 much interested in a group of 40 

 Patagonian cavvies; in the llamas, 

 alpacas, guanacos and vicunas (.all 

 South American relatives of the 

 camel family) and in the rheas or 

 "nandus"— the South American os- 

 trich which once provided Ameri- 

 can housewives with fine feather 

 dusters. All of these are compara- 

 tively rare in zoos in the States 

 Dr. Mann saw a number of native 

 birds and turtles new to him. 



The vicuna, in particular, has 



become almost extinct The wild 

 creature has been hunted for the 

 mountains for generations for its 

 fine fur and wool. We tried to 

 bargain with the natives for robes 

 of vicuna fur, but the prices came 

 too high for our pocketbooks. 



Curio shops in Cordoba, however, 

 were less expensive. For example 

 I bought an old Gaucho knife, with 

 a carved silver handle and a flex- 

 ible Toledo blade, for 12 pesos— less 

 than $3. In the old days the Gaucho 

 used his knife for two necessities 

 — eating and fighting. Having an 

 appetite for both, he was rarely 

 without his knife, day or night, 

 The handle of my knife is yorn 

 thin and the blade has been sharp- 

 ened many times. 



Old silver coins, in use for almost 

 400 years, make interesting souve- 

 nirs. They were poured at primi- 



tive smelters, stamped as Spa 

 currency, and come in every c 

 ceivable shape. 



Prices Not Hiked. 



There are Gaucho belts of many 

 colors and hand -woven ponchos of 

 llama, alpaca ana larrro's wool. Fur- 

 thermore, the dealers don't hike the 

 prices for tourists— you have the 

 word of tourist officials for that! 



One impression of Cordoba was 

 the sight of a peon driving a string 

 of cows through a downtown street 

 jammed with motor traffic— deliver- 

 ing milk on the hoof! Beside him 

 rose a modern building topped by 

 a penthouse, where a butler was 

 exercising a French poodle. 



I wondered how the people in the 

 penthouse got their milk! 



The North Americans in Cordoba, 

 a city of some 300,000, are less than 

 a score, although the English col- 



PLAZA HOTEL - C6RDOBA 



J 



CORDOBA 

 f HIT BY 

 CYCLONE 



DISASTER has again struck 

 at the Province of Cor- 

 doba, several parts of the 

 Province having been laid( 

 waste yesterday by a wind of 

 cyclonic force which struck 

 Rio Guarto first and then 

 travelled towards the city of 

 Cordoba leaving a trail of 

 wreckage in its wake which 

 it has so far been unable to 

 adequately estimate. 



Judging by the force of the wind, 

 however, it is believed that con- 

 siderable material damage must of 

 necessity have been caused, while 

 it is also feared that there may 

 have been personal victims. 



It was at 16.30 when the force 

 of the wind began to make itself 

 felt at Rio Cuarto. The sky rapidly 

 became clouded over by flying 

 dust and the sun disappeared be- 

 hind a heavy black cloud. The 

 wind steadily increased and those 

 people in the streets hastily sought 

 refuge. Stores and shops hastily 

 slammed their doors and pulled 

 down their shutters, and those 

 people who remained in the street 

 were almost blinded by the thick 

 cloud of dust which the wind had 

 brought with it. 



Electric signs, sun blinds and 

 other moveable objects in the 

 street were torn from their hold- 

 ings and sailed through the air 

 and in the midst of the confusion 

 the electric current failed. 



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All traffic in the streets was 

 stopped, while telephonic and te- 

 legraphic communications were in- 

 terrupted for various hours. 



Whilst this was going on in Rio 

 Cuarto, the population 1 of Sampacho 

 was undergoing a similar trial, 

 with the added circumstance that 

 an earthquake shook the ground 

 for a whole minute causing the in- 

 habitants to desert their homes and 

 rush for open spaces. 



The cyclone reached the city of 

 Cordoba at 18.30 o'clock and simi- 

 lar scenes of panic to those in Rio 

 Cuarto were witnessed. The electric 

 light failed, transport and tele- 

 phonic communication were inte- 

 rrupted. 



Up to a late hour last night no 

 reports of personal injuries or fa- 

 talities had been received. 



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