’How many widows loose the hair, in far Yamamah land,
       How many an orphan there abides, feeble of voice and eye,
     Since faredst thou, who wast to them instead of father lost
       when they like nestled fledglings were, sans power to creep or fly. 
     And now we hope—­since broke the clouds their word and troth with us—­
       Hope from the Caliph’s grace to gain a rain that ne’er shall dry.’

When the Caliph heard this, he said, “By Allah, O Jarir!  Omar possesseth but an hundred dirhams.  Ho boy! do thou give them to him!” Moreover, he gifted Jarir with the ornaments of his sword; and Jarir went forth to the other poets, who asked him, “What is behind thee?” ["What is thy news?”] and he answered, “A man who giveth to the poor, and who denieth the poets; and with him I am well pleased.”

DOMINIQUE FRANCOIS ARAGO

(1786-1853)

BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN

Dominique Francois Arago was born February 26th, 1786, near Perpignan, in the Eastern Pyrenees, where his father held the position of Treasurer of the Mint.  He entered the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris after a brilliant examination, and held the first places throughout the course.  In 1806 he was sent to Valencia in Spain, and to the neighboring island of Iviza, to make the astronomical observations for prolonging the arc of the meridian from Dunkirk southward, in order to supply the basis for the metric system.

[Illustration:  D. FR. ARAGO]

Here begin his extraordinary adventures, which are told with inimitable spirit and vigor in his ‘Autobiography.’  Arago’s work required him to occupy stations on the summits of the highest peaks in the mountains of southeastern Spain.  The peasants were densely ignorant and hostile to all foreigners, so that an escort of troops was required in many of his journeys.  At some stations he made friends of the bandits of the neighborhood, and carried on his observations under their protection, as it were.  In 1807 the tribunal of the Inquisition existed in Valencia; and Arago was witness to the trial and punishment of a pretended sorceress,—­and this, as he says, in one of the principal towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university.  Yet the worst criminals lived unmolested in the cathedrals, for the “right of asylum” was still in force.  His geodetic observations were mysteries to the inhabitants, and his signals on the mountain top were believed to be part of the work of a French spy.  Just at this time hostilities broke out between France and Spain, and the astronomer was obliged to flee disguised as a Majorcan peasant, carrying his precious papers with him.  His knowledge of the Majorcan language saved him, and he reached a Spanish prison with only a slight wound from a dagger.  It is the first recorded instance, he says, of a fugitive flying to a dungeon for safety.  In this prison, under the care of Spanish officers, Arago found sufficient occupation in calculating observations which he had made; in reading the accounts in the Spanish journals of his own execution at Valencia; and in listening to rumors that it was proposed (by a Spanish monk) to do away with the French prisoner by poisoning his food.