Another textile fragment in the same collection is coloured black, red, and grey upon a yellowish ground. It is decorated with long-tailed birds resembling peacocks, and with sphinxes which fill the circles or medallions. A third fragment, also in the Vich Museum, belongs to the type of _pallia cum aquilis et bestiolis_. The design consists of a double-headed eagle with half-extended wings, holding in the claws of either foot some kind of quadruped--perhaps a bull. The colour of the ground resembles carmine, and on it the design is wrought in greenish black--that may have been originally green--relieved at intervals with yellow. The "witches'" _pallium_ in the same collection is decorated with the series of extraordinary beasts or monsters that have won for it this title with the vulgar, depicted in yellow, white, black, and dark green upon a red ground. Miquel believes this fabric to proceed from Byzantium, and to date from not much earlier than the eleventh century. The devices are disposed in two rows, the lower containing peacocks _affrontés_, and the upper a series of fantastic monsters, each of which possesses a head, two bodies, and four feet--the head being semi-human, semi-bestial, the double body that of a bird, and the claws those of a lion or some other formidable quadruped. The Royal Academy of History at Madrid possesses a fragment of the costly fabric known as _tiraz_, an eastern word (corrupted by the Spaniards into _taracea_, _i.e._ embroidery on clothing), which means the bordering for a royal robe. Such bordering, which contained inscriptions, or the sultan's name, or both together, is said to have been first used in Spain by Abderrahman the Second, who ruled from A.D. 825 to 852. "The caliphs of Cordova," says Riaño, "had a place set apart in their palaces where this stuff was kept: this custom lasted until the eleventh century, when it disappeared, and was re-established in the thirteenth century with the kings of Granada." _Tiraz_, in fact, was both produced and stored in special departments of the Sultan's palaces[7]; or so we must infer from the following passage by Ibn-Khaldun. "The places (_almedinas_) where these stuffs were woven were situated within the palaces of the caliphs, and were known as the 'pavilions of the _tiraz_.' The person at the head of these workshops was called the superintendent of the _tiraz_: he had charge of both the weavers and the looms, administered the salaries, and looked to the quality of the work. This post was entrusted by the princes to one of the foremost officers of their kingdom, or else to some freedman who thoroughly deserved their confidence." The same historian adds that the manufacture of _tiraz_ was conducted in Spain in the same manner as in the East under the dynasty of the Ommeyades. It is, however, certain that among the Spanish Moors _tiraz_ was not produced exclusively in royal factories. Al-Makkari states that in the time of the Somadies and