s 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