Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

They started, Martin and Leora and Gustaf Sondelius, on a winter morning, on the six-thousand-ton steamer St. Buryan of the McGurk Line, which carried machinery and flour and codfish and motors to the Lesser Antilles and brought back molasses, cocoa, avocados, Trinidad asphalt. A score of winter tourists made the round trip, but only a score, and there was little handkerchief-waving.

The McGurk Line pier was in South Brooklyn, in a district of brown anonymous houses. The sky was colorless above dirty snow. Sondelius seemed well content. As they drove upon a wharf littered with hides and boxes and disconsolate steerage passengers, he peered out of their crammed taxicab and announced that the bow of the St. Buryan-all they could see of it-reminded him of the Spanish steamer he had taken to the Cape Verde Isles. But to Martin and Leora, who had read of the drama of departure, of stewards darting with masses of flowers, dukes and divorcees being interviewed, and bands playing "The Star-spangled Banner," the St. Buryan was unromantic and its ferry-like casualness was discouraging.