pavilion to pavilion, not know-ing exactly where to cut your viewing short with a passing glance, and where to slow down and stop... And it will not take you long to realize that a single day of wandering will not satisfy you — enough for you to take from it a general idea like the one I took... And if you make for the "Publicity and Publications Corner" seeking more informa-tion, the man in charge there will direct you to the "Tourism and Summering Corner," which will in turn send you back to the first... and by it you will not gain one additional item... or a single word beyond the elegant bulletin distributed by the information office.

And you resolve at once to rely on yourself and on the strength of your senses... you take up your pen and your paper and begin recording a few observations which may have a special meaning for you... and be trivial to anyone else!

... And the announcer's voice comes over the loudspeakers, in the three languages, welcoming "the honored visitors" — but without that warm, captivat-ing voice with which "Abla al-Houri!" addressed the public at the first fair. The proceed-ings of the broadcasting at the fair went along with much monotony and tepidness... were it not for a welcome insistence on presenting the songs of Fairuz. How strange, this wide popularity that Fairuz's crys-talline voice has won in all the Arab countries!

If you are one of those who visited the first fair, you will notice without effort that the "Lebanese pavilion" this year is poorer and more meager, as though the effort had been confined — or so it seemed to me... And you will certainly start when you see the "Iraqi

Mr. Shukri al-Quwatli, President of the Syrian Republic, shakes hands with the Sudanese delegate at the fair's opening ceremony

The Barada — the fair's limpid mirror!