CARRIERS: Green Light

Into the broad bay of Beirut, on whose shores St. George is said to have slain his dragon, among the dirty fishing feluccas off Genoa and Leghorn, past the ruined English mole into Tangier, into Oran and Salonika and Jaffa and many another exotic port, push a string of fat-bellied, black-hulled, matter-of-fact ships with extravagantly alliterative names (examples: Excalibur, Exochorda, Exeter, Excambion). Most have proud six-foot letters on their hulls — AMERICAN EXPORT LINES. Their fore-and after-kingposts, surrounded by a cluster of loading booms like umbrella ribs, point ambitiously to the sky....

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