"The houses in this town stand in good order, one close to the other, like houses in Holland. Houses in which well-to-do people, such as gentlemen, dwell, have two or three steps to go up, and in front have an ante-court where one may sit, which court or gallery is cleaned every morning by their servants, and straw mats spread for sitting on. Their rooms or apartments with (the court) are four square, having a roof all round, which, however, does not join in the middle, but is left open, so that the wind, rain and daylight may enter. In these houses they live and eat, but they have specially built little houses for cooking, as well as other huts and rooms.... The king's court is very large, being many square places within, surrounded by courts wherein watch is always kept. This king's court is so large that the end is not to be seen, and when one thinks he has come to the end, one sees through a gateway other places or courts, and one sees many, many stables." Another description of Benin which seems to corroborate this former description, and which was itself substantiated by later and more recent reports, appeared in a book[9] published by one Dapper, a Dutchman, in Amsterdam in 1668. It seems that Dapper himself was never at Benin, but received most of his information about the country from the writings of a Sam Blomert, who, Dapper says, lived for many years in Africa.[10] As Ling Roth points out, subsequent reports and the recent finds seem to bear out the truth of his account. According to Dapper, "the town comprising the queen's court is about five or six [Dutch] miles in circumference, or, leaving out the court, three miles inside the gates. It is protected at one side by a wall ten feet high, made of double stockades of big trees tied to each other by cross beams, fastened crosswise and stuffed up with red clay solidly put together.... The town possesses several gates, eight or nine feet in height, and five feet in width, with doors made of a single piece of timber hanging, or turning on a peg like the peasants' fences here in this country. [Holland.]