As has been said in the introduction, it was the revelation incident to the taking of Benin by the British that marks the real beginning of a serious and scientific interest in the past cultures of Central Africa. The incident started a movement of both a forward and a backward reach. On the one hand, it led to subsequent searchings which ultimately resulted in the finding of additional evidences of culture in that territory, as well as to a reconsideration of the value of the reports of the travelers and adventurers on the West Coast from the fifteenth century on.[7] The combined result has been the bringing to light of objects and evidences of achievement which place the ancient and medieval African on a plane with, and in many cases above, his contemporaries in Europe and America. The reports of earlier adventurers and travelers in the Benin territory previous to the British conquest gave us pictures of towns and buildings which, all things considered, are of no mean order, and which reflect the existence of a social and cultural development of a very long standing. The earliest recorded description of Benin City, according to Ling Roth,[8] is that of an old Dutch chronicler who wrote as "D. R." and whose works first appeared in Germany in 1604. His description is as follows: "At first the town seems very large; when one enters it one comes at once into a broad street which appears to be seven or eight times broader than the Warme street in Amsterdam; this extends straight out, and when one has walked a quarter of an hour along it, he still does not see the end of the street.... At the gate at which one enters there is a very high bulwark, very thick and strongly made, with a very deep, broad ditch, but it was dry and full of high trees. This ditch extends a good way, but we do not know whether it extends around the town or not. That gate is a well-made gate, made of wood, to be shut according to their methods, and watch is always kept there. Outside this gate there is a large suburb.... One sees a great many lanes and streets on both sides, which also extend far and straight, but one can not see the end of them on account of their great extent.