From the rafters hung many flags of foreign countries captured by Argentina in war. There is a Union Jack, with colours dimmed with years, which was seized from the British nearly a hundred years ago, when a British force landed and it was a toss-up whether Argentina would not become a British Colony. Many British visitors cast a regretful eye upon that drooping flag in the Jesuit church at Cordoba. They are not told--but it is a fact all the same--it is not the real flag. I was shown the real flag folded in a glass case in a room behind the altar. Some years ago a number of young Englishmen travelling in the country recovered the real flag, which then hung in the chancel. There was such a how-d'ye-do that it had to be returned. To avoid a similar mishap it was put under lock and key in a glass case, and kept in a chamber not accessible to the public. But the public would still want to see the British flag. So not to disappoint them an exact copy was made, and it is the imitation flag upon which most visiting Englishmen cast a patriotic but regretful eye. There is an agricultural college, a wonderful drive up a hill to a park which provides long distance views, an English school and a German school. I could easily give a dozen places where these developments can be found, and better. The point is that you find these things at all in the very heart of South America. Being the heart of the southern continent, Cordoba has been selected by the Government as its chief observatory. It is the Argentine Greenwich. The Republic keeps the same time from east to west, and it keeps Cordoba time. The observatory is under the control of a staff from the United States. The Cordobians are great lovers of pleasure. Sometimes on the grim hoardings of London you see how a railway company will take you, first class, to a popular seaside resort, house and feed you in a well-known hotel, and bring you back at a fixed inclusive sum for the week-end. The Central Argentine Railway does the same thing in regard to Alta Gracia, a pleasant village in the hills, and where there is the best mountain hotel in the world. Alta Gracia is about an hour's run from Cordoba, and on Sundays there is a rush of holiday-makers, reminiscent of the Pullman express out of London down to Brighton on a Sunday morning. The "fixed charge" is popular. Everybody knows exactly how much the outing is going to cost. At ten o'clock a train thronged with holiday-makers sets out for Alta Gracia. By eleven o'clock the place is reached. At noon there is _déjeuner_. The afternoon can be spent lounging about, listening to the band, playing golf, playing tennis, gambling in the casino, taking walks in the wooded hills. At seven o'clock is dinner. The train returns at nine o'clock, and by ten Cordoba and home is reached.