What could be more delightful than an exploratory raft trip down the Choruh and the Euphrates - two of Turkey's great rivers? And what, at moments, could be more terrifying?

In the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, as well as in Riyadh and Jiddah, the Western style supermarket has locked horns with the traditional suq in a battle of the old ways and the new.

In London last July, Sotheby's -for a record $2,017,050 - sold a 120-page illuminated manuscript-Rashid al-Din's magnificent work, Jarni' al-Tawarikh. This is the history of that history.

Lakes in Egypt? Yes. Seven of them which are sizable, beautiful and valuable, which provide food, jobs and recreation, but also - to those who wish to preserve them - present problems.