water, was habitable; and that all the rest was sea, which was not sussceptible of being navigated, except near the coasts and rivers; and that wise men denied the possibility of sailing from the coast of Spain to the farthest parts of the west.  Others argued nearly in the same manner as had been formerly done by the Portuguese in regard to the navigation along the western coast of Africa:  That if any one should sail due westwards, as proposed by the admiral, it would certainly be impossible to return again to Spain; because whoever should sail beyond the hemisphere which was known to Ptolemy, would then go downwards upon the rotundity of the globe, and then it would be impossible to sail up again on their return, which would necessarily be to climb up hill, and which no ship could accomplish even with the stiffest gale.  Although the admiral gave perfectly valid answers to all these objections; yet, such was the ignorance of these people, that the more his reasons were powerful and conclusive so much the less were they understood:  For when people have grown old in prejudices and false notions of philosophy and mathematics, these get such firm hold of the mind that true and just principles are utterly unintelligible.

The prior and his coadjutors were all influenced by a Spanish proverb, which, though contradictory to reason and common sense, says Dubitat Augustinus, or it is contradicted by St Augustine; who, in the 9th chapter of the 21st book of his city of God, denies the possibility of the Antipodes, or that any person should be able to go from one hemisphere into the other.  They farther urged against the admiral the commonly received opinions concerning the five zones, by which the torrid zone is declared utterly uninhabitable, and many other arguments equally absurd and ridiculous.  Upon the whole, they concluded to give judgment against the enterprize as vain and impracticable, and that it did not become the state and dignity of such great princes to act upon such weak information as they conceived to have been communicated.  Therefore, after much time spent in the business, the admiral received for answer that their Catholic majesties were then occupied in many other wars, and particularly in the conquest of Granada then going on, and could not therefore conveniently attend to this new undertaking; but that on some future opportunity of greater leisure and convenience, they would have more time to examine into his proposal.  To conclude, their majesties refused to listen to the great proposals which the admiral made to them.

While these matters were in agitation, their Catholic majesties had not been always resident in one place, owing to the war of Granada in which they were then engaged, by which a long time was lost before they had formed a final resolution and given their answer.  The admiral went therefore to Seville, where he still found their majesties as unresolved as before.  He then gave an account of his projected expedition