The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-03
IN URUGUAY.
HDISAGREEABLE WAT OF LAND
 ING.
4 Few Years Ago the Most Rich and Prosperous Country of South Ameri- ea-NOveI Methods of L anding Pas senners
sengers.

FrOsperous country or SOutn Ameri-
 ea-NoveI Methods of L anding Pas
 sengers.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 Montevideo, Uruguay, April 27. 1904.
 After our manifold experiences in South American ports, we fiattered our selves that nothing more remained to be learned in the line of disagreeable methods of transit from ship to shore. Those southern ports where vessels come up to civilized pier and dis charge their passengers over a gang plank are rare as angels visits. AS a rule, anchor is cast three or four miles from land, the ladder-like stairs are let down outside from the upper deck, and ishore-going people descend to row. boats that come dancing over the bil- lows for that purpose. Such an expe- rience is bad enough in the usual rough seas, for one must spring off the stairs at the precise instant when, the tiny boat is tossed near on the crest of a wave; and having successfully per- formed the feat, be rowed through the surf, often wetted to the skin, or occa- sionally swamped, to be fished out lagain-a ''domd, damp, moist, unpleas- ant body.'
 At Yucatan we were carried to land on the backs of men; at Guatemala on mules; at Costa Rico in wagons; at Mollendo (Peru) in barrel; and a hun- dred times on rocky coasts where bil- lows are too boisterous for other means, we have been hoisted up and swung out 1 by cranes, like cattle, seated on a plat form, or in a rough box, or tub-swung round and round in mid-air as the clumsy apparatus slowly performed it's work; and finally dumped, with dull thud, upon some waiting scow, or raft, or tender.
 | But we looked for no such trouble at Montevideo, the rich and splendid cap | ital of prosperous Uruguay, which has so often been described as the finest city in South America. Judge then of the utter demoralization of unprepared feminine nerves when we found here the very worst method of landing we have yet encountered, compared to which the man-back transit of Cam peche and the barrel of Mollendo are blessings. Everybody made an unusu- | ally careful toilette on the morning that we were due in Montevideo. expecting to skip, dry-shod over a gang plank into the city, and emerged smiling, from his state-room in answer to the well come summons, "All ashore" But, to our astonishment, there was neither aces of the capital gleaming dim in the distance, and even the stair-like ladder remained in statu quo, lashed up under the life-boat. What did it mean?
 Are you ready, ladies?" said the ever gallant captain, and thereupon we were escorted to the end of the ship that looms up highest above the water l-whether it be fore" or "aft' I am not sailor enough to tell you. Away down below a screaming, tossing, rock 1 ing little tug advanced and receeded, the plaything of the pillows; and straight down the steamers side dan gled ladder of tarred rope-made fast at the top, but swinging loose at the bottom and ending off at nowhere, faI above the water-upon which we had often watched the sailors ascending and descending like caricatures of Jacobs angels, and marveled at their temerity For a moment nobody conceived the connection between the steamer the ladder and the tug; and it then dawned upon us like a blow on the head. We
 were actually expected to chamber over Ithe deck-railing climb hand under hand down those frail ropes to their
 stopping place, and cling there above the briny deep till that bobbing tug bobbed near enough-then drop, and trust to Providence! Though it seemed that to walk pirates plank could moi be more narrowing, there was no helI for it-nothing to be done but mount
 the deck-rail and get outside of those horrible ropes, with as little display oi hosiery as circumstances will permit ir a breezy day at sea; say ''Veda world Iadieu," shut your eyes, and cling fo1 dear life, while the ship lurches up anG down as usual-till some body shouts lt'Drop!" Then you let go, expecting tc fall into fathoms of water, or into the interior of shark, a la Jonah; and presently find yourself an undignified
 heap on the slippery deck of the little tug. Then you gather up your man. gled remains and hasten to hide youl blushes (and probably your tears, if moi more strong-minded than the average
 woman), in the tiny box of a cabin striving to repair damages and regain lsomething like composure, while youl comrades in distress are undergoing ths
 same ordeal.
 Of course, aged people, children and Iinvalids cannot be trusted to make this 1 Al Serat passage for themselves, and all such passengers are just picked uI and dropped overheard into somebody arms outstretched below. To be sure, I.sThere's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," and it sometimes happens lwhen miscalculation is made, or the tug bobs away too soon-that an un- fortunate voyager gets ducking; but there are always plenty of sailors at hand to fish him out of the ocean, an6 I've were assured that few had been drowned. Sharks? We'll, yes, it was reluctantly admitted that there are sharks in these waters, and they had Ibeen known to snap off unwary legs land arms; therefore one cannot be toe
 careful about keeping out of their way 1 When all the passengers had beer Ithus transferred, the luggage is pitched