c. 1866.—
"And if I were forty years younger, and my life before me to choose,
I wouldn't be lectured by Kafirs, or swindled by fat Hindoos."
Sir A. C. Lyall, The Old Pindaree.
CAFILA, s. Arab. ḳāfila; a body or convoy of travellers, a [Caravan] (q.v.). Also used in some of the following quotations for a sea convoy.
1552.—"Those roads of which we speak are the general routes of the Cafilas, which are sometimes of 3,000 or 4,000 men ... for the country is very perilous because of both hill-people and plain-people, who haunt the roads to rob travellers."—Barros, IV. vi. 1.
1596.—"The ships of Chatins (see [CHETTY]) of these parts are not to sail along the coast of Malavar or to the north except in a cafilla, that they may come and go more securely, and not be cut off by the Malavars and other corsairs."—Proclamation of Goa Viceroy, in Archiv. Port. Or., fasc. iii. 661.
[1598.—"Two Caffylen, that is companies of people and Camelles."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 159.]
[1616.—"A cafilowe consisting of 200 broadcloths," &c.—Foster, Letters, iv. 276.]
[1617.—"By the failing of the Goa Caffila."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 402.]