Excerpts from selected Fanny Bullock Workman texts

By Pere Gifra Adroher

The Fortress overhanging Alicante has been compared in appearance to a dust heap. This comparison does not ill apply to the whole environment of the place, although at times when the sun casts its shadows aslant, the unfruitful hills are transformed into beauty spots upon the landscape. In regard to the architecture of the city not much can be said, as its maritime importance, such as it is, has introduced so much of the modern as to obscure the prestige of the flat-roofed buildings.

Source: Workman, F. Bullock, 1897, Sketches Awheel in Modern Iberia, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 71.

Perhaps the most noticeable feature of Cadiz is the extreme neatness and cleanliness everywhere seen. It is decidedly the best kept city we saw in Spain, and the same remark would not be untrue of regions beyond the Pyrenees. The impression is heightened by the ever-ready brush of the whitewasher, which keeps the houses and walls in the most immaculate condition. Such care is the more remarkable, because the city is evidently in a state of decadence, and no activity, either of commerce, trade, or manufacture is apparent.

Source: Workman, F. Bullock, 1897, Sketches Awheel in Modern Iberia, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 132.

We left Carmona at five o'clock in the morning. As we entered Écija at noon, one of the rear tyres was punctured. No other refuge being at hand, we drew up at the side of a house on the street and proceeded with repairs, surrounded by the usual garrulous crowd, which quickly gathered and jostled one another in their eagerness to see what was going on. They did not disturb us except by the dust they stirred up, and in a few moments the tyre was made tight and inflated and we started on.

Source: Bullock Workman, F., 1897, Sketches Awheel in Modern Iberia, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 155.