Books: The Wily Wali

REPORT FROM PRACTICALLY NOWHERE (252 pp.)—John Sack—Harper ($3.95).

The big countries have been thoroughly pawed over by tourists and travel writers. Searching for a virgin field, Author-Traveler John Sack turned to 13 of the smallest and least important nations, seminations and oddball principalities he could find, from seagirt Lundy (pop. 21), ten miles off the coast of an indifferent England, to the Middle Eastern principality of Swat (pop. 518,600), whose wily Wali encourages the tourist trade, according to Sack, by personally inspecting the toilet drains in his nation's only hotel.

Generally, Author Sack...