ning of the sixteenth century, when such
names as Omar, Mafamedi, Bugimaa, and Bebedim occur in the list of
workmen.

It is chiefly in three directions that Moorish influence made itself
felt, in actual design, in carpentry, and in tiling, and of these the
last two, and especially tiling, are the most general, and long survived
the disappearance of Arab detail.

[Sidenote: Cintra.]

Some eighteen miles from Lisbon, several sharp granite peaks rise high
above an undulating tableland. Two of these are encircled by the old
Moorish fortification which climbs up and down over huge granite
boulders, and on a projecting spur near their foot, and to the north,
there stands the old palace of Cintra. As long as the Walis ruled at
Lisbon, it was to Cintra that they came in summer for hunting and cool
air, and some part at least of their palace seems to have survived till
to-day.

Cintra was first taken by Alfonso VI. of Castile and Leon in 1093--to be
soon lost and retaken by Count Henry of Burgundy sixteen years later,
but was not permanently held by the Christians till Affonso Henriques
expelled the Moors in 1147. The Palace of the Walis was soon granted by
him to Gualdim Paes, the famous grand master of the Templars, and was
held by his successors till it was given to Dom Diniz's queen, St.
Isabel. She died in 1336, when the palace returned to the Order of
Christ--which had meanwhile been formed out of the suppressed Order of
the Temple--only to be granted to Dona Beatriz, the wife of D. Affonso
IV., in exchange for her possessions at Ega and at Torre de Murta. Dom
Joao I. granted the palace in 1385 to Dom Henrique de Vilhena, but he
soon sided with the Spaniards, for he was of Spanish birth, his
possessions were confiscated and Cintra returned to the Crown. Some of
the previous kings may have done something to the palace, but it was
King Joao who first made it one of the chief royal residences, and who
built a very large part of it.

A few of the walls have been examined by taking off the plaster, and
have been found to be built in the usual Arab manner, courses of rubble
bonded at intervals with bands of thin bricks two or three courses deep.
Such are the back wall of the entrance hall and a thick wall near the
kitchen. Outside all the walls are plastered, all the older windows, of
one or two lights, are enclosed in square frames--for the later windows
of Dom Manoel's time are far more elaborate and fantastic--and most