ABSTRACT
Now at length, after this much explanation and introduction, it is possible to consider the merchants and their caravans. Commercial caravans were, after all, the backbone of desert travel. It was the merchants who fostered intercourse between Syria and Mesopotamia; they kept open the connecting highways; and they themselves were the ambassadorial links between the various cities on both sides of the desert. The travellers who followed in their wake, though interesting in themselves, have been comparatively incidental and evanescent figures; but from their unrecorded beginnings to the present day, the organizing of these immense trading companies, their lading and departure, have formed a pivotal point in the life of all caravan or quasi-caravan cities. As the centuries passed, the early spontaneous and rather haphazard commercial ventures gradually became regularized; and a system involving complex financial arrangements perpetuated itself, despite invasions, revolutions and changing dynasties in the lands adjacent to the desert.
