Abruptly, as she worked, there came the crack of whips and the sound of
curses, and Si'Wren looked up in momentary astonishment as a team of
two big oxen straining against their yokes plodded slowly past the open
end flap of her tent accompanied by several dirty-looking boys and
driven by two brawny slaves who presently followed the beasts into
view. Truly, Si'Wren observed meekly, a woman's place was under a man's
protection, for what woman could match such men in the daily toil of
such backbreaking labors as this?
The oxen were dragging a stone boat. A stone boat was no boat at all,
but actually a great, wheelless, wooden sled or sledge used to
transport big building stones from the rock quarry, or round stones
from the harvest fields where they were unearthed by the plow, to be
dragged as deadweight upon a platform made with two wooden skids, and
transported across the dry land to the construction site for use in the
making of more stone walls and buildings.
The young slave boys walked alongside the grating and squealing runners
of the stone boat with goat skin bags, ready to provide grease or water
to make sludge or mud under the runners, when the sled ground to a halt
sometimes and must have something extra added to unstick it.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30