There are two reasons for approaching this whole subject in this way. First, the materials and facts herewith considered are in the main of a tangible and undisputed character; and, secondly, it is the study of architecture and the arts and crafts of this particular locality that has been the premier force in changing the old opinion of the world towards Africa. Let us then turn now for a somewhat detailed study of these materials.
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.
"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.]
"The king's court is square and stands at the right-hand side as one enters the town by the gate of Gotton, and is certainly as large as the town of Harlem, and entirely surrounded by a special wall like that which encircles the town. It is divided into many magnificent palaces, houses and apartments for courtiers and comprises beautiful long and square galleries about as large as the Exchange at Amsterdam, but one larger than another, resting on wooden pillars from top to bottom, covered with cast copper on which are engraved the pictures of their war exploits and battles, and are kept very clean. Most palaces and houses are covered with palm leaves instead of square pieces of wood [shingles], and every roof is decorated with a small turret, ending in a small point on which birds are standing, these birds being cast in copper, and having outspread wings cleverly made after living models.
"The town has thirty very straight and broad streets, each of them about one hundred and twenty feet wide or about as wide as the Heeren or Keezersgracht [canals] at Amsterdam from one row of houses to the other, from which branch out many side streets, also broad, but less so than the main streets.
"The houses are built alongside the street in good order, the one close to the other as here in this country [Holland], adorned with gables and steps and roofs made of palm or banana leaves, or leaves from other trees; they are not higher than a 'stadie,' but usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms, which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected, and they can make and keep them as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storys are made of the same sort of clay; moreover, every house is provided with a well for a supply of fresh water."
Before going any further with this description, it may be well to state that the description of the nature and character of the finish of the walls given here is substantiated by accounts of travelers in these parts as late as the end of the nineteenth century. Captain Boisragon, one of the two survivors of the ill-fated white expedition to Benin in 1897, in comparing the houses of Benin with those of another nearby city, says that "the chief of Gwatto's house was very much superior; the walls, which were very thick, being polished till they were nearly as smooth and shiny as glass."[11] Mr. Cyrl Punch, who traveled in Yorubaland in the eighties of the nineteenth century, gives us a hint of the widespread practice of this sort of wall polishing even so late as forty-five years ago, and furnishes us with a very interesting account of how the polished effect was produced. "For giving a high polish to the clay walls in Yorubaland," says Punch, "the leaves of the Moringa pterygosperinia are mashed up and rubbed over the clay." Of a certain house in the town Brohemi he continues to say that "the walls were better polished than any in Benin. They were like marble."[12]
In comparing the earlier descriptions of Benin and other African cities in this general area with the descriptions of later writers, an important fact stands out, namely, that these cities had already reached their highest point of development before the coming of the white man; for in a description of Benin by another Dutchman, Nyendall, which appeared in 1704, we read the following: "Formerly the buildings in this village were very thick and very close together, and in a manner it was over-populated, which is yet visible from the ruins of the half remaining houses; but at present the houses stand like poor men's corn, widely apart from each other." His description otherwise is very similar to those previously given, yet his account does bring out an additional point which is worthy of note, namely, the reason for the use of clay in building. "The houses are large and handsome," he writes, "with clay walls; for there is not a stone in the whole country as large as a man's fist."[13] In the same connection, Legraing, who visited Benin in 1787, also hints at the reason for the extensive use of clay and wood as the principal structural materials. Around Benin, according to this observer, "the vestiges of an old earthen wall are still to be seen; the wall could hardly have been built of any other material, as we did not see a single stone in the whole journey up."[14]
The recent reports by Leo Frobenius on his findings further up into the interior, aside from giving us a picture of present-day conditions of cities which he believes to date back to pre-classical and pre-Christian times, also show the absence or scarcity of durable producing materials. But, most important of all, the report indicates the grandeur of African cities in ancient times. In discussing the buildings in the present-day city of Ilife, which he believes was the capital or center of an ancient African theocracy, he says: "There can be no doubt that the entire plan and style of architecture gives the city of Ilife a pleasantly dignified character. If, however, I am to summarize all the life and activities of this city of palms and divinities, I cannot, indeed, speak of anything great and sublime, because that lies buried too deep beneath the soil and debris of centuries, yet I can say that it has a dreamy respectability."