Native Houses and Cities
The houses are built of unburnt clay which hardens in the sun, covered with a beautiful thatch-long, peculiar grass—exhibiting only the walls to the streets, the doors all opening inside of these walls, which are entered by a gate or large doorway; the streets generally irregular and narrow, but frequently agreeably relieved by wider ones, or large, open spaces or parks shaded with trees; all presenting a scene so romantic and antiquated in appearance, that you cannot resist the association with Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, and Thebais. The buildings are heavy and substantial for their kind, many of which are very extensive. These towns and cities are all entrenched and walled; extending entirely around them; that of Abbeokuta with the new addition being twenty-seven miles, though the population is less by forty thousand than Ibaddan, which embraces about twenty-three miles.