Dom Joao's time, for it is the only window where the capitals are
not of the usual Arab form, and they are not at all like some in the
castle of Sempre Noiva built about the beginning of the sixteenth
century.

The wall-tiles of the dining-room are like those of the Sala das
Sereias, but end in a splendid cresting. The ceiling is modern and
uninteresting.

Next to the north comes the servery, a room without interest but for its
window which looks west, and is like the two older dining-room windows.

Returning to the Sala das Sereias, a spiral stair leads down to the
central pateo, which can also be reached from the porch in the
south-west corner. All along the south side runs the tank made by Dom
Joao for his daughter's swans, and on three sides are beautiful white
marble windows. At the east end of the north side three open arches lead
to the bathroom. As is the case with the windows, the three arches are
enclosed in a square frame. The capitals, however, are different, having
an eight-sided bell on which rests a square block with a bud carved at
each angle, and above an abacus, moulded all round. The arches are
cusped like the windows, but are stilted and segmental. Inside is a
recess framed in an arch of Dom Manoel's time, and from all over the
tiled walls and the ceiling jets of water squirt out, so that the whole
becomes a great shower-bath, delightful and cooling on a hot day but
rather public. In the middle of the pateo there stands a curious
column--not at all unlike the 'pelourinho'[95] of Cintra--which stands
in a basin just before the entrance gate. This column is formed of three
twisted shafts on whose capitals sit a group of boys holding three
shields charged with the royal arms. All round the court is a dado of
white and green tiles arranged in an Arab pattern.

In the north-west corner and reached by the same spiral stair, but at a
higher level than the Sala das Sereias, is the Sala dos Arabes, so
called because it is commonly believed to be a part of the original
building. The walls may be so, but of the rest, nothing, but perhaps the
shallow round fountain basin in the middle and the square of tiles which
surrounds it, now so worn that little of their glazed surface is left.
The walls half-way up are lined with tiles, squares and parallelograms,
blue, white and green. The doors are framed in different tiles, and all
are finished with an elaborate cresting. The most interesting thing in
the room is t