By the post-road it is 172 leagues distant from Buenos Ayres. It is related that for many years after its foundation, the inhabitants were subjected to much inconvenience from the occasional overflowings of a lake in the neighbouring hills, until an earthquake swallowed up its waters, and drained it apparently for ever. Much damage, however, is still done by the mountain-torrents which descend from the Sierra in the rainy season, and have made it necessary to build strong walls to save the city from being occasionally inundated. Limestone and timber being to be had in the immediate neighbourhood, the houses are generally better built than in other towns in the interior. Cordova contains many churches, and is the seat of a university, at which, in the time of the Old Spaniards, most of the better classes from all parts of the Vice-Royalty received their education: it was under the management of the Jesuits, to whom this city owes much of its importance. It was here they had their principal college (the Colegio Maximo); and they held large possessions in the neighbourhood, from whence they derived considerable revenues, the greater part of which were spent in the foundation and embellishment of the churches, and in other pious establishments. Here also they had a celebrated library, rich in manuscript records of their Missions and labours amongst the Indians, which upon their expulsion was sent to Buenos Ayres. The printed books formed the nucleus of the present public library in that city; but the greater part of the manuscripts, and amongst the rest an unpublished portion of Father Guevara's History, have never since been seen: they were probably, either sent to Spain or destroyed by Bucareli, who was charged with the expulsion of the Order; a duty which he fulfilled with a harshness and illiberality never to be forgotten in a country which owes all it possesses in the shape of civilization, to the indefatigable zeal and enlightened spirit of that community. Out of their confiscated property the university of Buenos Ayres was subsequently founded; and being more conveniently situated for the rising generation, it has in proportion diminished the importance of that of Cordova, which, though still kept up, has dwindled to the scale of a provincial school. From the year 1699 Cordova was also the residence of a bishop (removed from Tucuman), but the see has been vacant since the first years of the revolution.