A Caravanserai Is Not Ill Adapted To The Purposes For Which It Is
Meant.
It forms the four sides of a large quadrangular court.
The
ground floor is used for warehouses, the first floor for guests,
and the open court for the temporary reception of the camels, as
well as for the loading and unloading of their burthens, and the
transaction of mercantile business generally. The apartments used
for the guests are small cells opening into a corridor, which runs
round the four sides of the court.
Whilst I lay near the opening of my cell looking down into the
court below, there arrived from the Desert a caravan, that is, a
large assemblage of travellers. It consisted chiefly of Moldavian
pilgrims, who to make their good work even more than complete had
begun by visiting the shrine of the Virgin in Egypt, and were now
going on to Jerusalem. They had been overtaken in the Desert by a
gale of wind, which so drove the sand and raised up such mountains
before them, that their journey had been terribly perplexed and
obstructed, and their provisions (including water, the most
precious of all) had been exhausted long before they reached the
end of their toilsome march. They were sadly wayworn. The arrival
of the caravan drew many and various groups into the court. There
was the Moldavian pilgrim with his sable dress and cap of fur and
heavy masses of bushy hair; the Turk, with his various and
brilliant garments; the Arab, superbly stalking under his striped
blanket, that hung like royalty upon his stately form; the jetty
Ethiopian in his slavish frock; the sleek, smooth-faced scribe with
his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box stuck in like a dagger
at his girdle.
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