Also of Dom Joao's time are the tiles in the _Sala das Pegas_, where
they are of the regular Moorish pattern--blue, green and brown on a
white ground, and where four go to make up the pattern. The cresting of
green scrolls and vases is much later.

Judging from the cresting in the dining-room or _Sala de Jantar_, where,
except that the ground is brown relieved by large white stars, and that
the cusps are green and not blue, the design is exactly the same as in
the _Sala dos Arabes_, the tiles there must be at least as old as these
crestings; for though older tiles might be given a more modern cresting,
the reverse is hardly likely to occur, and if as old as the crestings
they may possibly belong to Dom Joao's time, or at least to the middle
of the fifteenth century. (Fig. 9.)

These dining-room tiles, and also those in the neighbouring _Sala das
Sereias_, are among the most beautiful in the palace. The ground is as
usual white, and on each is embossed a beautiful green vine-leaf with
branches and tendril. Tiles similar, but with a bunch of grapes added,
line part of the stair in the picturesque little _Pateo de Diana_ near
at hand, and form the top of the back of the tiled bench and throne in
the _Sala do Conselho_, once an open veranda. Most of this bench is
covered with tiles of Moorish design, but on the front each is stamped
with an armillary sphere in which the axis is yellow, the lines of the
equator and tropics green, and the rest blue. These one would certainly
take to be of Dom Manoel's time, for the armillary sphere was his
emblem, but they are said to be older.

Most of the floor tiles are of unglazed red, except some in the chapel,
which are supposed to have formed the paving of the original mosque, and
some in an upper room, worn smooth by the feet of Dom Affonso VI., who
was imprisoned there for many a year in the seventeenth century.

When Dom Manoel was making his great addition to the palace in the early
years of the sixteenth century he lined the walls of the _Sala dos
Cysnes_ with tiles forming a check of green

[Illustration: FIG. 8.

SALA DOS ARABES.
PALACE, CINTRA.

_From a photograph by L. Oram, Cintra._]

[Illustration: FIG. 9.

DINING-ROOM, OLD PALACE.
CINTRA.

_From a photograph by L. Oram, Cintra._]

and white. These are carried up over the doors and windows, and in
places have a curious cresting of green cones like Moorish battlements,
and of castles.

Much older are the til