Senhor Luis d'Albuquerque, and he and his
successors have been singularly successful in their efforts, and have
carried out a restoration with which little fault can be found, except
that they have been too lavish in building pierced parapets, and in
filling the windows of the church with wooden fretwork and with hideous
green, red and blue glass.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.
BATALHA.
CLOISTER.
_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.
BATALHA.
LAVATORY IN CLAUSTRO REAL.]
CHAPTER XIII
BELEM
Belem or Bethlehem lies close to the shore, after the broad estuary of
the Tagus has again grown narrow, about four miles from the centre of
Lisbon, and may best be reached by one of the excellent electric cars
which now so well connect together the different parts of the town and
its wide-spreading suburbs.
Situated where the river mouth is at its narrowest, it is natural that
it was chosen as the site of one of the forts built to defend the
capital. Here, then, on a sandbank washed once by every high tide, but
now joined to the mainland by so unromantic a feature as the gasworks, a
tower begun by Dom Joao II., and designed, it is said, by Garcia de
Resende, was finished by Dom Manoel about 1520 and dedicated to Sao
Vicente, the patron of Lisbon.[127]
The tower is not of very great size, perhaps some forty feet square by
about one hundred high. It stands free on three sides, but on the south
towards the water it is protected by a great projecting bastion, which,
rather wider than the tower, ends at the water edge in a polygon.
The tower contains several stories of one room each, none of which are
in themselves in any way remarkable except the lowest, in which is the
perforated screen mentioned in the last chapter. In the second story the
south window opens on to a long balcony running the whole breadth of the
tower, and the other windows on to smaller balconies. The third story is
finished with a fortified parapet resting on great corbels. The last and
fourth, smaller than those below, is fortified with pointed merlons, and
with a round corbelled turret at each corner.
On entering, it is found that the bastion contains a sort of cloister
with a flat paved roof on to which opens the door of the tower. Under
the cloister are horrid damp dungeons, last used by Dom Miguel, who
during his usurpation imprisoned in them such of his liberal opponents
as he could catch. The wh
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