de Castilho before he retired in 1551.
These are now confined to two stairs leading from the upper to the lower
cloister. These stairs

[Illustration: FIG. 85.

THOMAR.

CONVENT OF CHRIST.

CLAUSTRO DA HOSPEDARIA.]

[Illustration: FIG. 86.

THOMAR.

CHAPEL IN DORMITORY PASSAGE.]

are adorned with pilasters or thin columns against the walls, delicate
cornices, medallions, figures, and foliage; in one are square-headed
built-up doors or doorlike spaces, with well-moulded architraves, and
always in the centre above the opening small figures are carved, in one
an exquisite little Cupid holding a torch. At the bottom of the eastern
stair, which is decorated with scenes from the life of St. Jerome and
with the head of Frei Antonio of Lisbon, first prior of the reformed
order, a door led into the lower floor of the unfinished chapter-house.
On this same stair there is a date 1545, so the work was probably going
on till the very end of Joao's tenure of office, and fine as the present
cloister is, it is a pity that he was not able himself to finish it, for
it is the chief cloister in the whole building, and on it he would no
doubt have employed all the resources of his art. (Fig. 87.)

It is not without interest to learn that, like architects of the present
day, Joao de Castilho often found very great difficulties in carrying
out his work. Till well within the last hundred years Portugal was an
almost roadless country, and four centuries ago, as now, most of the
heavy carting was done by oxen, which are able to drag clumsy carts
heavily laden up and down the most impassable lanes. Several times does
he write to the king of the difficulty of getting oxen. On 4th March
1548 he says:

'I have written some days ago to Pero Carvalho to tell him of the want
of carts, since those which we had were away carrying stone for the
works at Cardiga and at Almeirim'--a palace now destroyed opposite
Santarem--'the works of Thomar remaining without stone these three
months. And for want of a hundred cart-loads of stone which I had worked
at the quarry--doors and windows--I have not finished the students'
studies'--probably in the noviciate near the Claustro da Micha. 'The
studies are raised to more than half their height and in eight days'
work I shall finish them if only I had oxen, for those I had have died.

'I would ask 20$000 [about L4, 10s.] to buy five oxen, and with three
which I have I could manage the carriage of a thou