Some of them are dowdy and old and keep themselves respectable only by many applications of paint, as a man who has seen better circumstances will often keep his ancient suit from appearing too unpresentable by the frequent application of the whisk broom and the pressing iron. But others of these ships are sparkling in bright woodwork and have the smoothest of unscarred sides. Their decks are holystoned to the whiteness of a Dutch matron’s kitchen table, and their passenger accommodations are beyond criticism. But the passenger space on these ships is generally somewhat limited, although many of them are most elaborately equipped, and the holds are for ever being emptied or filled with the kinds of freight that require rapid shipment, or, coming in small parcels, can afford to pay the higher rates these ships demand. They sail on scheduled dates and have routes of their own, which often include more or less numerous ports of call, and they all belong to steamship lines of major or minor importance which maintain offices or representatives at most of the ports that give them their business. The United Fruit Company, the ships of which traverse the Caribbean, and call at Havana and other major ports in addition to many small ones on their voyages from and to New York, maintains great banana plantations, which furnish the larger portion of the freight these beautiful white ships carry. Other lines have other interests, some maintaining a rigid aloofness from interests farther from their ships than the passengers and freight of the ports at which they call. But these ships take one comfortably to many such out-of-the-way places as would hardly seem worthy of their attention. Again, however, the fundamental differences, save size, between these and the great liners are comparatively slight. In size, it is true, the difference is vast. It would take a round dozen of the smaller intermediate liners to equal in bulk the great _Majestic_. And still these ships are not to be called small. They may, perhaps, be four or five hundred feet in length. Their speed, it is true, is likely to be far less than that of the great ships, for they make, perhaps, fifteen or sixteen or eighteen knots, while the great ships may reel off twenty-five or more an hour. [Illustration: AN AMERICAN INTERMEDIATE LINER _Ships of this type were developed during the World War._]