In some cities, visiting foreigners might be required to lodge in quarters specifically reserved for persons of their type. Thus, in tenth and eleventh century Constantinople, Christian pilgrims stayed at the Hospice of Samson, while Russian merchants were shuttled out to "specially reserved houses in the suburb of Saint Mamas" (Runciman, … 1952:62). In Canton, China, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, foreign merchants were barred from the city but were given permission to stay in "reservations" across the river and were allowed to conduct their business through specially designated mediators (Comhaire and Cahnman, 1962: 115). This Cantonese arrangement seems extreme and untypical. More commonly in preindustrial cities, tourists, pilgrims, and businessmen were expected only to sleep in the visitors' quarters. During the day, they presumably were free to roam the city.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 266