Perhaps the most extensive blending of modern with traditional in Arab-world architecture has taken place in several of the small but booming states of the Gulf.

Aramco's Mobile Oil Exhibit toured some 50 towns and villages during the past ten years, carrying the story of Saudi Arabia's most important natural resource to the remotest inhabited areas of the kingdom. But now the "big top" has been struck for the last time.

A small oasis town in eastern Saudi Arabia has undergone a most unusual transformation—thanks to the inspiration of a most unusual man.

"... I felt as if Neptune himself had taken hold of the oar blade out there in the blackness of the sea. Vast forces wrenched the oar from me and the whole vessel heeled, while white furies thundered out of the darkness and buried everything under my legs. The bridge vibrated and the crack of breaking wood was loud in my ears..."

Charles Pomeroy Stone is a strangely neglected figure in Civil War history for a man who not only helped save Washington, but was also an Egyptian pasha.