Occupying the same position under the south wall, and facing the barracks, were two other buildings, similar in appearance. In one of these the officers' quarters were located. It was divided into twelve sets, each consisting of two rooms, the front one sixteen by fourteen feet, and the back one, eight by fifteen and a half feet. In the basement were located kitchens for each set. The other building contained the offices of the commanding officer, the paymaster, the quartermaster, and the commissary. Here was a room used by the post school, and another filled with harness. An ordnance sergeant and five laundresses found quarters in the same structure. The quarters of the commanding officer with the flag staff directly in front, faced the parade ground and the Old Round Tower. There were four rooms on the main floor and in the basement were kitchens and pantries. Other buildings were also included within the fort. The storehouse of the commissary department was located near the southern blockhouse; and on either side of the gate were two buildings, shunned by all--the guardhouse and the hospital. Such was the plan of the fort, convenient in arrangement and beautiful in appearance; but the report of an official inspection in 1827 complained that "the main points of _defence against an enemy_ appear to have been in some respects sacrificed in the effort to secure the comfort and convenience of the troops in peace. These are important considerations; but at an exposed frontier post the primary object must be _security against the attack of an enemy_. Health and comfort come next. The buildings are too large, too numerous, and extending over a space entirely too great; enclosing a uselessly large parade, five times greater than is at all desirable in that climate."[202] A traveller who at a later day was entertained within the fort wrote of it facetiously in these words: "The idea is further suggested, that the strong stone wall was rather erected to keep the garrison in, than the enemy out. Though adapted for mounting cannon if needful, the walls were unprovided with those weapons; and the only piece of ordnance that I detected out of the magazine, was an old churn thrust gallantly through one of the embrasures. We were however far from complaining of the extra expense and taste which the worthy officer whose name it bears had expended on the erection of Fort Snelling, as it is in every way an addition to the sublime landscape in which it is situated."[203]