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From this hall, which may be of later date than Dom João's time, a door leads down to the central pateo or courtyard, or else going up a few steps the way goes through a smaller square room, once an open verandah, through a wide doorway inserted by Dom Manoel into the great Swan Hall.
The hall is lit by five windows looking south across the entrance court to the Moorish castle on the hill beyond, and by three looking over the swan tank into the central pateo. These windows, and indeed all those in Dom João's part of the palace, are very like each other. They are nearly all of two lights never of more and are made of white marble.
At the eastern end is a large seat, rather higher than the bench and provided with arms, doubtless for the king, and tiled like the rest. Passing again from the Swan Hall the way leads through the porch into the Sala das Pegas or of the magpies. The door from the porch to the room is one of the most beautiful parts of Dom João's work.
In the back wall of this hall may still be seen three windows which must have existed before it was built, for what is now their inner side was evidently at first their outer; and this wall is one of those found to be built in the Arab manner, so that clearly Dom João's hall was built in front of a part of the Walis' palace, a part which has quite disappeared except for this wall.
In the room itself the walls up to a certain height are covered with tiles, diamonds of white and a beautiful olive green which are much later than Dom João's time.
The Sala das Pegas, like the Swan Hall, is called after its ceiling, for on it are painted in 136 triangular compartments, 136 magpies, each holding in one foot a red rose and in its beak a scroll inscribed 'Por Bem. Possibly this ceiling, which on each side slopes up to a flat parallelogram, is more like that painted for Dom João than is that of the Swan Hall, but even here some of the mouldings are clearly renaissance, and the painting has been touched up, but anyhow it was already called Camera das Pegas in the time of Dom Duarte; further, tradition tells that the magpies were painted there by Dom João's orders, and why.
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