were navigable, whether habitable lands would be found on the other side of the globe, and whether they could be reached. They added that only a small part of this terraqueous globe was inhabited, and that this was in our hemisphere, and that all the remainder was sea, and only navigable near the coasts and rivers. “Some admitted that learned men said it was possible to sail from the coast of Spain to the farthest part of the West. Others argued, as the Portuguese had done, about sailing to Guinea, saying that if any man should sail directly westward, as the admiral proposed, that he would not be able to return to Spain on account of the roundness of the globe, confidently believing that whosoever should go out of the hemisphere known to Ptolemy would go downward, and that then it would be impossible to return, affirming that it would be like climbing a hill, which ships could not accomplish in the stiffest gale. Although the admiral properly answered all these objections, yet the more cogent his explanations were the less they comprehended him on account of their ignorance, for when a man grows familiar with false principles in mathematics for a long time he cannot perceive the true, because of the erroneous impressions which were first imprinted on his mind. In short, all of these men were governed by the Spanish saying, St. Augustine doubts it; for this holy man, in his twenty-first book, chapter ninth, on the city of God, asserts and considers that it is unreasonable to believe that there are antipodes, or any passage from one hemisphere to another.[133] “They further opposed the arguments of the admiral by quoting those current fables respecting the five zones, and other fictions, which they believed were true. They therefore determined to condemn the enterprise as foolish and impracticable, and to declare that it did not become the state and dignity of such great sovereigns to be misled by such weak information. Therefore, after much time had been spent in considering the project, their highnesses answered the admiral that they were then engaged in too many wars and conquests, and especially in the conquest of Granada, which was then occupying their attention, and therefore it was not convenient for them to espouse this new enterprise at that time; nevertheless, another opportunity might be given them when they could more satisfactorily examine and accomplish that which he proposed.”[134]