Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/60

for the service of fetching water from the nearest spring,^[1] distant 365 mètres from Hissarlik. The boy's work was to fill the barrels; that of the man to load two of them at a time on a donkey, and to convey them to the trenches or to the barracks; and so great was the consumption of water, that in hot weather he could hardly fetch water enough, though ten barrels were in constant use.

Thus equipped and installed, I recommenced the excavations on the 1st of March with 150 workmen, which remained the average number of my labourers during the five months of the Trojan campaign of 1882. I employed, besides, a large number of ox-teams and horse-carts. The daily wages of my labourers, which were at first 9 piastres, or 1s. 7d., gradually increased with the season, and were in the hot summer months 11 and 12 piastres, equal to from 25. to 2s. 1d. The horse- and ox-carts were paid 1 piastre, equal to 2⁠1/10⁠d., for each load. Work was commenced regularly at sunrise and continued till sunset. Until the 12th of April no rest was allowed, except one hour for dinner; but as the days became longer, I allowed, after the Easter holidays, another half-hour at 8.30 A.M. for breakfast; this latter break was, from the 1st of June, increased to one hour.

As the work with the pickaxe is the heaviest, I always selected for it the strongest workmen; the rest were employed for the wheelbarrows, for filling the débris into the baskets, for loading the carts, and for drawing or pushing the man-carts and shooting the débris.

The workmen were for the most part Greeks from the neighbouring villages of Kalifatli, Yeni Shehr, and Ren Kioi; a few of them were from the islands of Imbros or Tenedos, or from the Thracian Chersonese. Of Turkish workmen I had on an average only twenty-five; I would gladly have increased their number had it been possible, for