nscribed tablet upheld by small boys.

Under the pavement of the cloister as well as under the Claustro dos
Corvos is a great cistern. On the south was the kitchen and the oil
cellar, on the east the dispensary, and on the west a great oven and
wood-store with three large halls above, which seem to have been used by
the Inquisition.[151] The lodgings of the Dom Prior were above the
cloister to the north.

Like the Claustro da Micha, the Claustro dos Corvos has plain round
arches resting on round columns and set usually in pairs with a buttress
between each pair. On the south side, below, were the cellars, finished
in 1539, and above the library, on the west, various vaulted stores with
a passage above leading to the library from the dormitory.

The whole of the east side is occupied by the refectory, about 100 feet
long by 30 wide. On each of the long sides there is a pulpit, one
bearing the date 1536, enriched with arabesques, angels, and small
columns. At the south end are two windows, and at the north a hatch
communicating with the kitchen.

The Claustro da Hospedaria, as its name denotes, was where strangers
were lodged; like the Claustro dos Corvos each pair of arches is divided
by a buttress, and the round columns have simple but effective capitals,
in which nothing of the regular Corinthian is left but the abacus, and a
large plain leaf at each corner. Still, though plain, this cloister is
very picturesque. Its floor, like those of all the cloisters, lies deep
below the level of the church, and looking eastward from one of the cell
windows the Coro and the round church are seen towering high above the
brown tile roofs of the rooms beyond the cloister and of the simple
upper cloister, which runs across the eastern walk. (Fig. 85.)

This part of the building, begun about 1539, must have been carried on
during Joao de Castilho's absence, as in 1541 he was sent to Mazagao on
the Moroccan coast to build fortifications; there he made a bastion 'so
strong as to be able not only to resist the Shariff, but also the Turk,
so strong was it.'[152]

The small cloister of Santa Barbara is the most pleasing of all those
which Joao de Castilho was able to finish. In order not to hide the west
front of the church its arches had to be kept very low. They are
three-centred and almost flat, while the vault is even flatter, the bays
being divided by a stone beam resting on beautifully carved brackets.
The upper cloister is not