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 João'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, João 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 £4, 10s.] to buy five oxen, and with three which I have I could manage the carriage of a thousand cart-loads of worked stone, besides that of which I speak of to your Highness, and since there are no carts the men can bring nothing, even were they given 60 reis [about 3d.] a cartload there is no one to do carting.... ' ... And if your Highness will give me these oxen I shall finish the work very quickly, that when your Highness comes here you may find something to see and have contentment of it.'