Clearing the temple, Abydos.
Fig. 18. Heaps around area.
The local boys should all give the names of their villages on enlistment, and be kept in lists according to villages, so as to group them for payment in gold. In case of any serious theft or trouble due to boys from one village, all the rest from that village can be dismissed as a warning. To keep them up to time in arriving, it is best to dismiss for the day the two or three who come latest, if they are not well up to time. This soon enforces regularity. Any attempt to leave before the sunset signal, is met by dismissing altogether any boy who leaves too soon. It is best not to allow any substitution on the plea of illness, as if that is once allowed, it soon becomes a loophole for all the selected boys to gradually sell their places to less desirable fellows. A favourite plan of the piecework men is to turn all their own basket-boys into pick-boys, and then want more locals to carry the stuff. Of course this has to be met by deducting from the rate of pay, as the regular rates are for cutting and throwing, and not for cutting alone. The proportion of pay if the boys are set to do pick-work, on a gang of two men and two boys, goes as follows:—
| pick | 3 | pick | 3 | pick | 3 |
| basket | 2 | pick | 3 | pick | 3 |
| pick | 3 | pick | 3 | pick | 3 |
| basket | 2 | basket | 2 | pick | 3 |
| A | 10 | B | 11 | C | 12 |
| 2 baskets due | 4 | 4 baskets due | 8 | ||
| 15 | 20 |
Then if in a normal four-gang, A, one boy takes a pick they become as in B, and only have 11/15 of the piece pay, as the master has to supply the other two baskets for the normal gang of equal numbers of picks and baskets. Similarly if both boys take picks, as in C, the pay is of course ⅗ of what it would normally be; the other ⅖ being spent in supplying locals. The one absolute rule, however, is that if there are enough old trained hands to do the cutting, no local shall be allowed to do pick-work, as his intelligence, knowledge, and honesty are not to be trusted without training. The combination of piece pay for cutting and day pay for carrying is a happy one; as the piecework keeps the men moving, and they stir up the boys on day pay ([Fig. 19]).
In European countries this use of boys is scarcely possible owing to the national education. In Greece as in England the boys are required to go to school, and their holidays there are not at a time suitable for excavating, while in England the holidays are occupied by the harvest. Hence all work has to be done by men, at a higher rate of pay; and so mechanical aids to moving earth would be more profitable than they are in Egypt.
Fig. 19. Filling and carrying, at Abydos.
