ABSTRACT
Lithgow was now to À nd that his preferred method of solitary pedestrianism was no longer feasible for him, and he was about to sample a new mode of travel, the normal one for European voyagers through the Arab lands of the Near East, that is, the trading caravan (the ‘caÀ la’, from Ar. qĆÀ la, a caravan of such voyagers). This was slow, since the long procession of the caravan had to proceed at the pace of loaded camels, not usually much more than two miles an hour, and expensive because of the tolls payable and the khifĆras exacted by after cAlĩ’s revolt, when the events must have been still very fresh in people’s minds; see MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel, 98-99.
