Caravan (Persian kârwân), in Africa and the East, a large company of travellers associated for mutual help and protection. Caravans following a sandy desert route employ camels, sometimes as many as 1000, which follow each other in single file; in journeys through a steep and rocky country, mules and asses are used. The term is pro- perly confined to trading assemblages alone; for the caravans formed by pilgrims going to Mecca, the most famous of which are those which annually assemble at Cairo and at Damascus, see HAJJ. In trade-caravans, a leader, who is called Karwan-Bashi, or simply Reis ('chief'), is elected by the merchants from their own number. The leader of the Mecca caravans is called Emir-el Hajj ('prince of the pilgrims').
CARAVANSERAI, or KHANS, are the buildings erected in the East, generally as a pious charity, for the shelter of caravans or travellers; they are unfurnished, water only being provided. Generally erected just outside the walls of a town or village, they commonly consist of a square building of four wings built round a court-yard, in which the beasts of burden may be inclosed, and where there is usually a well, with a fountain-basin beside it; the lodgings are small rooms, generally on a second story, built over the arcade and storerooms which run round the court-yard. Always massive and strong, the buildings are often handsome and well proportioned; but in too many instances they have been allowed to sink into dilapidation and even ruin.
From 'a moving company, cavalcade, company in motion—e.g. out for a picnic,' Caravan had come in 1689 to mean a large covered car or conveyance capable of carrying such a company. Thence the transition was easy to the 'climnied house on wheels' of the Gypsy, the showman, or Dr Gordon Stables, author of The Cruise of the Land Yacht 'Wanderer' (1886).