The town of Sulaco
itself--tops of walls, a great cupola, gleams of white miradors in a
vast grove of orange trees--lies between the mountains and the plain,
at some little distance from its harbour and out of the direct line of
sight from the sea.
CHAPTER TWO
The only sign of commercial activity within the harbour, visible from
the beach of the Great Isabel, is the square blunt end of the wooden
jetty which the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (the O.S.N. of familiar
speech) had thrown over the shallow part of the bay soon after they had
resolved to make of Sulaco one of their ports of call for the Republic
of Costaguana. The State possesses several harbours on its long
seaboard, but except Cayta, an important place, all are either small
and inconvenient inlets in an iron-bound coast--like Esmeralda, for
instance, sixty miles to the south--or else mere open roadsteads exposed
to the winds and fretted by the surf.
Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had kept away the
merchant fleets of bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the
sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33