Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/196

 In the Crétian ("Christian") quarter the streets, all disposed at right angles, are clean and well built, presenting a marked contrast to the conic-shaped hovels of the natives grouped together at both extremities of the island. Towards the centre is the Government palace, at the head of a bridge of boats 720 yards long, which here crosses the main branch of the Senegal, and connects the town with the insular suburbs of SorSor and Bouëtville, and with the railway station. On the opposite side are three other bridges over 100 yards long, communicating with the Negro quarters of Guet-Ndar, Ndar-tout, Gokhum-laye, on the tongue of sands exposed to the waves of the Atlantic.

The capital is now supplied with a tolerably good potable water by means of an aqueduct 15 miles long, which supplies the Sor reservoir with over 75,000 cubic feet from the Khassak lagoon. Various sanitary arrangements have also tended to improve the climate, and it is now proposed, if not to give the town a port, at least to construct a landing-stage on the' ocean, so as to avoid the dangerous shifting bar. A line of batteries and small forts on the land side affords complete protection from the attacks of the Moors, Wolofs, or other natives.:

In 1445, that is, two years after the discovery of the Arguin Bank by Nuno Tristam, the Portuguese erected a fortified factory on the chief island of the archipelago, and established commercial relations with Adrar. This fort passed successively into the hands of the Spaniards, Dutch, and English, and after a warm contest was finally occupied by the French in 1678. But after being for some time the centre of a flourishing trade it was abandoned, and nothing now remains of the citadel except its foundations half buried in the sands, and surrounded by a little fishing village. The place is inaccessible to large vessels, and although the tides rise six or seven feet on this coast, the tortuous channels connecting the deep Levrier Bay with the Arguin Straits have in some places little more than ten feet at low water. In front of the archipelago stretches the vast Arguin Bank, with its reefs, breakers, shallows, and alternately submerged and exposed sands, occupying altogether an extent of nearly 8,500 square miles.