400 AISTNTTJAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194? 



the ever-present scourges of malaria and dysentery, which strike out- 

 landers down, often with fatal results, while touching indigenes as 

 hardly more than uncomfortable ailments. In 1914 bubonic plague 

 was added to the considerable list of infectious diseases of local origin. 

 Although it attacked Africans almost exclusively, their careless atti- 

 tude toward sanitation made eradication difficult. 



To eliminate African compounds within the European city, an Afri- 

 can suburb, Medina, was laid out in rigid gridiron pattern, with blocks 

 smaller and streets wider than those of the early plat of Dakar. It is 

 separated from the older town by an unbuilt reserved clear belt 900 

 meters wide, as well as by a racecourse and a stadium. Africans resi- 

 dent in Dakar have been encouraged to move to Medina by gift of land 

 and aid in financing housebuilding. The place has grown fast. To- 

 day it contains more than half the total population of Dakar. Most 

 of the habitations are thatched huts, a good many are wooden cabins 

 •with tile roofs, and a few are of masonry. 



Some 20,000 Africans still live in Dakar proper. In the northwest 

 quadrant Africans occupy nearly all the land, and many are inter- 

 spersed among Europeans in the older sections (fig. 4). Their houses 

 may be made of wattle, boards, mats, flattened gasoline tins, adobe, 

 frame, and even masonry. Many are tile-roofed. In size they range 

 from huts to commodious houses (pi. 2, upper right). 



The strictly European residential quarters on the high ground are 

 spacious and airy. There the higher bureaucracy, some of the foreign 

 consuls, and many leading executives of business firms live in villas 

 hung with bougainvillaea and set in tree-shaded grounds. The houses 

 are agreeably adapted to the climate, being shallow, with wide win- 

 dows opening on verandas or terraces shaded by overhanging roofs. 

 Most of them have been built by the government or company whose 

 representatives occupy them. This has been necessary to house a com- 

 munity who may make Dakar their residence for few or many years 

 but who invariably spend long leaves in France at frequent intervals. 



Dakar, with its suburbs, forms a unit of 158 square kilometers, in 

 which the population density is some 350 to a square kilometer. It 

 is the largest native city in the area, thanks to opportunities for work 

 of all kinds. At the same time the ratio of Europeans to Africans 

 is high, 15 to 100, as compared with a tenth as many in Saint-Louis, a 

 more nearly typical coast city. Half the Europeans in the AOF — 

 some 6,500 — reside in Dakar. The percentage of women and children 

 is far higher than in any other place in West Africa. Tlie African 

 population is likewise exceptional in being made up of people from all 

 over Senegal, and indeed the entire AOF. Contrasting physical 

 types, accentuated by a wide range of dress, make the streets a color- 

 ful pageant in the animated hours of early morning and late afternoon. 



