Part 21

CARAVAN (more correctly _Karwan_), a Persian word, adopted into the later Arabic vocabulary, and denoting, throughout Asiatic Turkey and Persia,[1] a body of traders travelling together for greater security against robbers (and in particular against Bedouins, Kurds, Tatars and the like, whose grazing-grounds the proposed route may traverse) and for mutual assistance in the matter of provisions, water and so forth. These precautions are due to the absence of settled government, inns and roads. These conditions having existed from time immemorial in the major part of western Asia, and still existing, caravans always have been the principal means for the transfer of merchandise. In these companies camels are generally employed for the transport of heavy goods, especially where the track, like that between Damascus and Bagdad, for example, lies across level, sandy and arid districts. The camels are harnessed in strings of fifty or more at a time, a hair-rope connecting the rear of one beast with the head of another; the leader is gaily decorated with parti-coloured trappings, tassels and bells; an unladen ass precedes the file, for luck, say some, for guidance, say others. Where the route is rocky and steep, as that between Damascus and Aleppo, mules, or even asses, are used for burdens. The wealthier members ride, where possible, on horseback. Every man carries arms; but these are in truth more for show than for use, and are commonly flung away in the presence of any serious robber attack. Should greater peril than ordinary be anticipated, the protection of a company of soldiers is habitually pre-engaged,--an expensive, and ordinarily a useless adjunct. A leader or director, called _Karawan-Bashi_ (headman), or, out of compliment, _Karawan-Seraskier_ (general), but most often simply designated _Rais_ (chief), is before starting appointed by common consent. His duties are those of general manager, spokesman, arbitrator and so forth; his remuneration is indefinite. But in the matter of sales or purchases, either on the way or at the destination, each member of the caravan acts for himself.

The number of camels or mules in a single caravan varies from forty or so up to six hundred and more; sometimes, as on the reopening of a long-closed route, it reaches a thousand. The ordinary caravan seasons are the months of spring, early summer and later autumn. Friday, in accordance with a recommendation made in the Koran itself, is the favourite day for setting out, the most auspicious hour being that immediately following noonday prayer. The first day's march never does more than just clear the starting-point. Subsequently each day's route is divided into two stages,--from 3 or 4 A.M. to about 10 in the forenoon, and from between 2 and 3 P.M. till 6 or even 8 in the evening. Thus the time passed daily on the road averages from ten to twelve hours, and, as the ordinary pace of a laden camel does not exceed 2 m. an hour, that of a mule being 2-3/4, a distance varying from 23 to 28 m. is gone over every marching day. But prolonged halts of two, three, four and even more days often occur. The hours of halt, start and movement, the precise lines of route, and the selection or avoidance of particular localities are determined by common consent. But if, as sometimes happens, the services of a professional guide, or those of a military officer have been engaged, his decisions are final. While the caravan is on its way, the five stated daily prayers are, within certain limits, anticipated, deferred or curtailed, so as the better to coincide with the regular and necessary halts,--a practice authorized by orthodox Mahommedan custom and tradition.

Two caravans are mentioned in Genesis xxxvii.; the route on which they were passing seems to have coincided with that nowadays travelled by Syrian caravans on their way to Egypt. Other allusions to caravans may be found in Job, in Isaiah and in the Psalms. Eastern literature is full of such references.

The yearly pilgrim-bands, bound from various quarters of the Mahommedan world to their common destination, Mecca, are sometimes, but inaccurately, styled by European writers caravans; their proper designation is _Hajj_, a collective word for pilgrimages and pilgrims. The two principal pilgrim-caravans start yearly, the one from Damascus, or, to speak more exactly, from Mozarib, a village station three days' journey to the south of the Syrian capital, the other from Cairo in Egypt.[2] This latter was formerly joined on its route, near Akaba of the Red Sea, by the North African Hajj, which, however, now goes from Egypt by sea from Suez; the former gathers up bands from Anatolia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia and Syria. Besides these a third, but smaller Hajj of Persians, chiefly sets out from Suk-esh-Sheiukh, in the neighbourhood of Meshed Ali, on the lower Euphrates; a fourth of negroes, Nubians, etc., unites at Yambu on the Hejaz coast, whither they have crossed from Kosseir in Upper Egypt; a fifth of Indians and Malays, centres at Jidda; a sixth and seventh, of southern or eastern Arabs arrive, the former from Yemen, the latter from Nejd.

The Syrian Hajj is headed by the pasha of Damascus, either in person or by a vicarious official of high rank, and is further accompanied by the _Sorrah Amir_ or "Guardian of the Purse," a Turkish officer from Constantinople. The Egyptian company is commanded by an amir or ruler, appointed by the Cairene government, and is accompanied by the famous "Mahmal," or sacred pavilion. The other bands above mentioned have each their own amir, besides their _mekowwams_ or agents, whose business it is to see after provisions, water and the like, and are not seldom encumbered with a numerous retinue of servants and other attendants. Lastly, a considerable force of soldiery accompanies both the Syrian and the Egyptian Hajj.

No guides properly so-called attend these pilgrim-caravans, the routes followed being invariably the same, and well known. But Bedouin bands generally offer themselves by way of escort, and not seldom designedly lead their clients into the dangers from which they bargain to keep them safe. This they are the readier to do because, in addition to the personal luxuries with which many of the pilgrims provide themselves for the journey, a large amount of wealth, both in merchandise and coins, is habitually to be found among the travellers, who, in accordance with Mahommedan tradition, consider it not merely lawful but praiseworthy to unite mercantile speculation with religious duty. Nor has any one, the pasha himself or the amir and the military, when present, excepted, any acknowledged authority or general control in the pilgrim-caravans; nor is there any orderly subdivision of management or service. The pilgrims do, indeed, often coalesce in companies among themselves for mutual help, but necessity, circumstance or caprice governs all details, and thus it happens that numbers, sometimes as many as a third of the entire Hajj, yearly perish by their own negligence or by misfortune,--dying, some of thirst, others of fatigue and sickness, others at the hand of robbers on the way. In fact the principal routes are in many places lined for miles together with the bones of camels and men.

The numbers which compose these pilgrim caravans are much exaggerated by popular rumour; yet it is certain that the Syrian and Egyptian sometimes amount to 5000 each, with 25,000 or 30,000 camels in train. Large supplies of food and water have to be carried, the more so at times that the pilgrim season, following as it does the Mahommedan calendar, which is lunar, falls for years together in the very hottest season. Hence, too, the journey is usually accomplished by night marches, the hours being from 3 to 4 P.M. to 6 or 7 A.M. of the following day. Torches are lighted on the road, the pace is slower than that of an ordinary caravan, and does not exceed 2 m. an hour.

See MECCA and MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Arabia proper it is rarely employed in speech and never in writing, strictly Arabic words such as _Rikb_ ("assembled riders") or _Qafila_ ("wayfaring band") being in ordinary use.

[2] The Syrian and Egyptian haj; have been able, since 1908, to travel by the railway from Damascus to the Hejaz.

CARAVANSERAI, a public building, for the shelter of a caravan (q.v.) and of wayfarers generally in Asiatic Turkey. It is commonly constructed in the neighbourhood, but not within the walls, of a town or village. It is quadrangular in form, with a dead wall outside; this wall has small windows high up, but in the lower parts merely a few narrow air-holes. Inside a cloister-like arcade, surrounded by cellular store-rooms, forms the ground floor, and a somewhat lighter arcade, giving access to little dwelling-rooms, runs round it above. Broad open flights of stone steps connect the storeys. The central court is open to the sky, and generally has in its centre a well with a fountain-basin beside it. A spacious gateway, high and wide enough to admit the passage of a loaded camel, forms the sole entrance, which is furnished with heavy doors, and is further guarded within by massive iron chains, drawn across at night. The entry is paved with flagstones, and there are stone seats on each side. The court itself is generally paved, and large enough to admit of three or four hundred crouching camels or tethered mules; the bales of merchandise are piled away under the lower arcade, or stored up in the cellars behind it. The upstairs apartments are for human lodging; cooking is usually carried on in one or more corners of the quadrangle below. Should the caravanserai be a small one, the merchants and their goods alone find place within, the beasts of burden being left outside. A porter, appointed by the municipal authority of the place, is always present, lodged just within the gate, and sometimes one or more assistants. These form a guard of the building and of the goods and persons in it, and have the right to maintain order and, within certain limits, decorum; but they have no further control over the temporary occupants of the place, which is always kept open for all arrivals from prayer-time at early dawn till late in the evening. A small gratuity is expected by the porter, but he has no legal claim for payment, his maintenance being provided for out of the funds of the institution. Neither food nor provender is supplied.

Many caravanserais in Syria, Mesopotamia and Anatolia have considerable architectural merit; their style of construction is in general that known as Saracenic; their massive walls are of hewn stone; their proportions apt and grand. The portals especially are often decorated with intricate carving; so also is the prayer-niche within. These buildings, with their belongings, are works of charity, and are supported, repaired and so forth out of funds derived from pious legacies, most often of land or rentals. Sometimes a municipality takes on itself to construct and maintain a caravanserai; but in any case the institution is tax-free, and its revenues are inalienable. When, as sometimes happens, those revenues have been dissipated by peculation, neglect or change of times, the caravanserai passes through downward stages of dilapidation to total ruin (of which only too many examples may be seen) unless some new charity intervene to repair and renew it.

_Khans, i.e._ places analogous to inns and hotels, where not lodging only, but often food and other necessaries or comforts may be had for payment, are sometimes by inaccurate writers confounded with caravanserais. They are generally to be found within the town or village precincts, and are of much smaller dimensions than caravanserais. The khan of Asad Pasha at Damascus is a model of constructive skill and architectural beauty.

CARAVEL, or CARVEL (from the Gr. [Greek: k['a]rabos], a light ship, through the Ital. _carabella_ and the Span. _carabas_), a name applied at different times and in different countries to ships of very varying appearance and build, as in Turkey to a ship of war, and in France to a small boat used in the herring fishery. In the 15th and 16th centuries, caravels were much used by the Portuguese and Spanish for long voyages. They were roundish ships, with a double tower at the stern, and a single one in the bows, and were galley rigged. Two out of the three vessels in which Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery to America were "caravels." Carvel, the older English form, is now used only in the term "carvel-built," for a boat in which the planking is flush with the edges laid side to side, in distinction from "clinker-built," where the edges overlap.

CARAVELLAS, a small seaport of southern Bahia, Brazil, on the Caravellas river a few miles above its mouth, which is dangerously obstructed by sandbars. Pop. (1890) of the municipality 5482, about one-half of whom lived in the town. Caravellas was once the centre of a flourishing whale fishery, but has since fallen into decay. It is the port of the Bahia & Minas railway, whose traffic is comparatively unimportant.

CARAWAY, the fruit, or so-called seed, of _Carum Carui_, an umbelliferous plant growing throughout the northern and central parts of Europe and Asia, and naturalized in waste places in England. The plant has finely-cut leaves and compound umbels of small white flowers. The fruits are laterally compressed and ovate, the mericarps (the two portions into which the ripe fruit splits) being subcylindrical, slightly arched, and marked with five distinct pale ridges. Caraways evolve a pleasant aromatic odour when bruised, and they have an agreeable spicy taste. They yield from 3 to 6% of a volatile oil, the chief constituent of which is cymene aldehyde. Cymene itself is present, having the formula CH3C6H4CH(CH3)2; also carvone C10H14O, and limonene, a terpene. The dose of the oil is 1/2-3 minims. The plant is cultivated in north and central Europe, and Morocco, as well as in the south of England, the produce of more northerly latitudes being richer in essential oil than that grown in southern regions. The essential oil is largely obtained by distillation for use in medicine as an aromatic stimulant and carminative, and as a flavouring material in cookery and in liqueurs for drinking. Caraways are, however, more extensively consumed entire in certain kinds of cheese, cakes and bread, and they form the basis of a popular article of confectionery known as caraway comfits.

CARBALLO, a town of north-western Spain, in the province of Corunna; on the right bank of the river Allones, 20 m. S.W. of the city of Corunna. Pop. (1900) 13,032. Carballo is the central market of a thriving agricultural district. At San Juan de Carballo, on the opposite bank of the Allones, there are hot sulphurous springs.

CARBAZOL, C12H9N, a chemical constituent of coal-tar and crude anthracene. From the latter it may be obtained by fusion with caustic potash when it is converted into carbazol-potassium, which can be easily separated by distilling off the anthracene. It may be prepared synthetically by passing the vapours of diphenylamine or aniline through a red-hot tube; by heating diorthodiaminodiphenyl with 25% sulphuric acid to 200 deg. C. for 15 hours; by heating orthoaminodiphenyl with lime; or by heating thiodiphenylamine with copper powder. It is also obtained as a decomposition product of brucine or strychnine, when these alkaloids are distilled with zinc dust. It is easily soluble in the common organic solvents, and crystallizes in plates or tables melting at 238 deg. C. It is a very stable compound, possessing feebly basic properties and characterized by its ready sublimation. It distils unchanged, even when the operation is carried out in the presence of zinc dust. On being heated with caustic potash in a current of carbonic acid, it gives carbazol carbonic acid C12H8N.COOH; melted with oxalic acid it gives carbazol blue. It dissolves in concentrated sulphuric acid to a clear yellow solution. The potassium salt reacts with the alkyl iodides to give N-substituted alkyl derivatives. It gives the pine-shaving reaction, in this respect resembling pyrrol (q.v.).

CARBIDE, in chemistry, a compound of carbon with another element. The introduction of the electric furnace into practical chemistry was followed by the preparation of many metallic carbides previously unknown, some of which, especially calcium carbide, are now of great commercial importance. Carbides of the following general formulae have been obtained by H. Moissan (M denotes an atom of metal and C of carbon):--

M3C = manganese, iron; M2C = molybdenum; M3C2 = chromium; MC = zirconium; M4C3 = beryllium, aluminium; M2C3 = uranium; MC2 = barium, calcium, strontium, lithium, thorium, &c.; MC4 = chromium.

The principal methods for the preparation of carbides may be classified as follows:--(1) direct union at a high temperature, e.g. lithium, iron, chromium, tungsten, &c.; (2) by the reduction of oxides with carbon at high temperatures, e.g. calcium, barium, strontium, manganese, chromium, &c.; (3) by the reduction of carbonates with magnesium in the presence of carbon, e.g. calcium, lithium; (4) by the action of metals on acetylene or metallic derivatives of acetylene, e.g., sodium, potassium. The metallic carbides are crystalline solids, the greater number being decomposed by water into a metallic hydrate and a hydrocarbon; sometimes hydrogen is also evolved. Calcium carbide owes its industrial importance to its decomposition into acetylene; lithium carbide behaves similarly. Methane is yielded by aluminium and beryllium carbides, and, mixed with hydrogen, by manganese carbide. The important carbides are mentioned in the separate articles on the various metals. The commercial aspect of calcium carbide is treated in the article ACETYLENE.

CARBINE (Fr. _carabine_, Ger. _Karabiner_), a word which came into use towards the end of the 16th century to denote a form of small fire-arm, shorter than the musket and chiefly used by mounted men. It has retained this significance, through all subsequent modifications of small-arm design, to the present day, and is now as a rule a shortened and otherwise slightly modified form of the ordinary rifle (q.v.).

CARBO, the name of a Roman plebeian family of the gens Papiria. The following are the most important members in Roman history:--

1. GAIUS PAPIRIUS CARBO, statesman and orator. He was associated with C. Gracchus in carrying out the provisions of the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus (see GRACCHUS). When tribune of the people (131 B.C.) he carried a law extending voting by ballot to the enactment and repeal of laws; another proposal, that the tribunes should be allowed to become candidates for the same office in the year immediately following, was defeated by the younger Scipio Africanus. Carbo was suspected of having been concerned in the sudden death of Scipio (129), if not his actual murderer. He subsequently went over to the optimates, and (when consul in 120) successfully defended Lucius Opimius, the murderer of Gaius Gracchus, when he was impeached for the murder of citizens without a trial, and even went so far as to say that Gracchus had been justly slain. But the optimates did not trust Carbo. He was impeached by Licinius Crassus on a similar charge, and, feeling that he had nothing to hope for from the optimates and that his condemnation was certain, he committed suicide.

See Livy, _Epit._ 59; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 18: Vell. Pat. ii. 4; Val. Max. iii. 7. 6; A.H.J. Greenidge, _History of Rome_ (1904).

2. His son, GAIUS PAPIRIUS CARBO, surnamed Arvina, was a staunch supporter of the aristocracy, and was put to death by the Marian party in 82. He is known chiefly for the law (Plautia Papiria) carried by him and M. Plautius Silvanus when tribunes of the people in 90 (or 89), whereby the Roman franchise was offered to every Italian ally domiciled in Italy at the time when the law was enacted, provided he made application personally within sixty days to the praetor at Rome (see ROME: _History_, II. "The Republic," Period C.). The object of the law was to conciliate the states at war with Rome and to secure the loyalty of the federate states. Like his father, Carbo was an orator of distinction.

See Cicero, _Pro Archia_, 4; Vell. Pat. ii. 26; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 88.

3. GNAEUS PAPIRIUS CARBO (c. 130-82 B.C.), nephew of (1). He was a strong supporter of the Marian party, and took part in the blockade of Rome (87). In 85 he was chosen by Cinna as his colleague in the consulship, and extensive preparations were made for carrying on war in Greece against Sulla, who had announced his intention of returning to Italy. Cinna and Carbo declared themselves consuls for the following year, and large bodies of troops were transported across the Adriatic; but when Cinna was murdered by his own soldiers, who refused to engage in civil war, Carbo was obliged to bring them back. In 82 Carbo, then consul for the third time with the younger Marius, fought an indecisive engagement with Sulla near Clusium, but was defeated with great loss in an attack on the camp of Sulla's general, Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius [see under METELLUS (6)] near Faventia. Although he still had a large army and the Samnites remained faithful to him, Carbo was so disheartened by his failure to relieve Praeneste, where the younger Marius had taken refuge, that he decided to leave Italy. He first fled to Africa, thence to the island of Cossyra (Pentellaria), where he was arrested, taken in chains before Pompey at Lilybaeum and put to death.

See Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 67-98; Livy, _Epit._ 79, 84, 88, 89; Plutarch, _Pompey_, 5, 6, 10, and _Sulla_, 28; Cicero, _ad Fam._ ix. 21; Eutropius, v. 8, 9; Orosius, v. 20; Valerius Maximus, v. 3. 5, ix. 13. 2; art. SULLA, L. CORNELIUS.

CARBOHYDRATE, in chemistry, the generic name for compounds empirically represented by the formula C_{x}(H2O)_{y}. They are essentially vegetable products, and include the sugars, starches, gums and celluloses (q.v.).

CARBOLIC ACID or PHENOL (hydroxy-benzene), C6H5OH, an acid found in the urine of the herbivorae, and in small quantity in _castoreum_ (F. Wohler, _Ann._, 1848, 67, p. 360). Its principal commercial source is the fraction of coal-tar which distils between 150 and 200 deg. C., in which it was discovered in 1834 by F. Runge. In order to obtain the phenol from this distillate, it is treated with caustic soda, which dissolves the phenol and its homologues together with a certain quantity of naphthalene and other hydrocarbons. The solution is diluted with water, and the hydrocarbons are thereby precipitated and separated. The solution is then acidified, and the phenols are liberated and form an oily layer on the surface of the acid. This layer is separated, and the phenol recovered by a process of fractional distillation. It may be synthetically prepared by fusing potassium benzene sulphonate with caustic alkalis (A. Kekule, A. Wurtz); by the action of nitrous acid on aniline; by passing oxygen into boiling benzene containing aluminium chloride (C. Friedel and J.M. Crafts, _Ann. Chim. Phys._, 1888 (6) 14, p. 435); by heating phenol carboxylic acids with baryta; and, in small quantities by the oxidation of benzene with hydrogen peroxide or nascent ozone (A.R. Leeds, _Ber._, 1881, 14, p. 976).