Syria: Certain Foe, Uncertain Future

Agatha 
Christie’s husband,
Sir Max Mallowan,
was a famous British archaeologist who worked extensive-
ly in the Middle
East. In her book 
Come, Tell Me How
You Live (Dodd, Mead), Christie describes their travels to Syria in
the years before World War II. Among the travelers was an architect dubbed “Bumps,” whose unusual name came about while they were riding in a train: Bum