Foreign correspondents spend much of their lives dashing off to wars and disasters, sending back the news as fast as they can gather it. This is exciting, even romantic -- but often an even more stimulating challenge comes with being freed from deadlines to take a longer and closer look at the cultural and political forces at work in various areas of the world. In the past two years, TIME correspondents have made extended reporting tours of Central America, Southeast Asia, West Africa, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. For this week's detailed portrait of Saudi Arabia, Middle East Bureau Chief William Stewart spent nearly five weeks traveling through the desert state. "The purpose of these geographic profiles is to break the pattern of traveling only to crises and get to the deeper story," explains Chief of Correspondents Richard Duncan.

Stewart, who made two relatively short trips to Saudi Arabia in 1974 and 1975, began his latest visit in Taif, where he covered the Third Islamic Summit and interviewed Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal. After that, Stewart was on his own. Says he: "One of the satisfactions in doing a story that has no hard-news pressures is the kind of discovery that only time and attention to detail permit." In Saudi Arabia sharp and unexpected regional differences became evident to Stewart at once. "Jidda is very much a port town, devoted to commerce and much more relaxed than the interior," he says.

"In Riyadh, the capital and heart of the House of Saud, the hotels are quiet and the restaurants muted. The religious police patrol the streets, sometimes urging the faithful to prayer by hitting gently at their ankles with switches. Until the 1950s, foreigners -- even Arab foreigners -- could visit Riyadh only by royal invitation." Stewart was startled by the pace of change in the country. Says he: "Today more Bedouin tribesmen live in villas than in tents. The nomadic way of life is dying -- and not without regrets."

In the southwestern province of Asir, Stewart and Photographer Robert Azzi sampled the breathtaking highland views and watched a modern national park being carved out of the mountains. Yet despite such natural wonders, Stewart feels that Saudi Arabia's greatest resource is its people. "Initial contacts can be difficult to make, but once you are known, you are regarded as a friend," he says. "In all the Arab world, I have never been treated with greater kindness."

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