DAKAR — WHITTLESEY 403 



plaza up to the governor's mansion have become the principal shopping 

 thoroughfares. Between the old town and the plaza are bookstores, 

 a music store, a pastry shop, a grocer}^, and several barbers, but 

 large wine stores dominate. Between the plaza and the "plateau" 

 are shops for women's wear, shoes, novelties, stationery, and refrig- 

 erators, besides pharmacies, photographic studios, and a cinema. 

 Besides these, large stores carry varied merchandise. In kind, their 

 inventory is much like that of traditional African cornptoirs; but in 

 character they are European department stores, with show windows, 

 well-defined sections for different articles, and emphasis on quality 

 and fashion. Many shops are branches of French firms. Others are 

 of local origin — another evidence of commercial progressiveness. 



These streets catering to the carriage trade are somewhat som- 

 nolent, particularly during the sunny hours from 10 until 4, tliough 

 the shops close for only a 2- or 3-hour siesta. In sharp contrast is the 

 extension of the older main street beyond the plaza, where it changes 

 both its name and its character. The little, open-front shops of this 

 section are owned and operated mainly by Syrians and North Africans. 

 They cater to the indigenes, who enliven the street with their billowing 

 costumes and incessant movement and chatter. "Cloths" and other 

 ''Manchester goods" sold in every West African town constitute the 

 bulk of the stock; and nearly every place of business carries a little 

 of everything, including staple groceries and dried codfish. Some 

 differentiation appears in the separate wineshops (successors to the 

 dramshops of old Dakar) and in stress here and there on French 

 novelties. The shopkeepers live on the premises, a custom formerly 

 universal in Dakar but becoming uncommon among European mer- 

 chants. Half a dozen blocks along this street is the corner of the 

 original town plat, now the principal traffic focus of the city and site 

 of the principal market house. Beyond, shops run by Africans extend 

 through an African quarter toward Medina. Most of these are dry- 

 goods stores, where men busily sew tlie dresses worn by both sexes. 



Market gardens are cultivated o]i reclaimed coastal marshes or on 

 sand dunes where the soil is moist, and some are irrigated. They are 

 worked by men clad in breechclouts. Most of the fresh produce finds 

 its way to European dining rooms. The Africans are consuming more 

 and more imported food, chiefly rice from the middle Niger Basin and 

 Indochina and dried fish taken by Bretons on the Icelandic or Grand 

 Banks. 



In contrast with merchandising, there is scarcely any manufactur- 

 ing in the European sense. The waterworks, the electric plant, a 

 brewery for beer and soft drinks, two refrigerating plants, and a 

 laundry make up the list. All stand near the north end of the harbor, 



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