This is an account made extraordinary by the insights of the author's two journeys to the Middle East separated by some 60 years-the most recent in 1989. We travel to Turkey for firsthand stories of the modernization of this great nation, and of the reality behind the "dancing dervishes." On to Syria by camel caravan, to Aleppo and Antioch for a meeting with the leader of the Druse, the secret community scattered throughout the eastern Mediterranean states. On a journey interwoven with stories of romantic elopements, emperors, and slaves, we learn the methods of the fakirs and the Salabiyya. We travel to Beirut with swordsmen, sheikhs, and poets.