After the conclusion of this treaty, King Richard being anxious to take the shortest and speediest route to his dominions by traversing the continent of Europe, and to travel in disguise to avoid the malice of his enemies, made an arrangement with his friend Robert de Sablé, the Grand Master of the Temple, whereby the latter undertook to place a galley of the order at the disposal of the king, and it was determined that whilst the royal fleet pursued its course with Queen Berengaria through the Straits of Gibraltar to Britain, Coeur de Lion himself, disguised in the habit of a Knight Templar, should secretly embark and make for one of the ports of the Adriatic. The plan was carried into effect on the night of the 25th of October, and King Richard set sail, accompanied by some attendants, and four trusty Templars.[239] The habit he had assumed, however, protected him not, as is well known, from the cowardly vengeance of the base duke of Austria. The lion-hearted monarch was one of the many benefactors to the order of the Temple. He granted to the fraternity his manor of Calow, with various powers and privileges.[240] [Sidenote: GILBERT HORAL. A. D. 1195.] Shortly after his departure from Palestine, the Grand Master, Robert de Sablé, was succeeded by Brother Gilbert Horal or Erail, who had previously filled the high office of Grand Preceptor of France.[241] The Templars, to retain and strengthen their dominion in Palestine, commenced the erection of various strong fortresses, the stupendous ruins of many of which remain to this day. The most famous of these was the Pilgrim's Castle,[242] which commanded the coast-road from Acre to Jerusalem. It derived its name from a solitary tower erected by the early Templars to protect the passage of the pilgrims through a dangerous pass in the mountains bordering the sea-coast, and was commenced shortly after the removal of the chief house of the order from Jerusalem to Acre. A small promontory which juts out into the sea a few miles below Mount Carmel, was converted into a fortified camp. Two gigantic towers, a hundred feet in height and seventy-four feet in width, were erected, together with enormous bastions connected together by strong walls furnished with all kinds of military engines. The vast inclosure contained a palace for the use of the Grand Master and knights, a magnificent church, houses and offices for the serving brethren and hired soldiers, together with pasturages, vineyards, gardens, orchards, and fishponds. On one side of the walls was the salt sea, and on the other, within the camp, delicious springs of fresh water. The garrison amounted to four thousand men in time of war.[243] Considerable remains of this famous fortress are still visible on the coast, a few miles to the south of Acre. It is still called by the Levantines, _Castel Pellegrino_. Pococke describes it as "very magnificent, and so finely built, that it may be reckoned one of the