From Beirut to Boston and on—to New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Montreal and San Francisco.

A book with a point, and a best-seller for 2,000 years, it has been translated at least 200 times into 50 different languages.

If you get 1,500 replies, the specialist said, be glad. That was last summer, and this May the questionaires were still coming in.

Millions of people have visited Damascus over the years, but James MacGregor is probably the only one to have gone there by canoe.

"That is where our influence has been important...we got to many people when they were young and trained not only minds but characters."

Nothing is more individualistic than the olive tree—except perhaps, the man who cultivates this stubborn, sulky and ageless plant.