The Spaniards had heard many accounts of the soft and delightful region of Xaragua, in one part of which Indian traditions placed their Elysian fields.  They had heard much, also, of the beauty and urbanity of the inhabitants: the mode of their reception was calculated to confirm their favorable prepossessions. As they approach the place, thirty females of the cacique’s household came forth to meet them, singing their aryetos, or traditional ballads, and dancing and waving palm branches. The married females wore aprons of embroidered cotton, reaching half way to the knees; the young women were entirely naked, with merely a fillet round  the forehead, their hair falling upon their shoulders. They were beautifully proportioned; their skin smooth and delicate, and their completion of a clear agreeable brown …. The Spaniards when they beheld them issuing forth from their green woods, almost imagined they beheld the fabled dryads, or native nymphs and fairies of the fountains, sung by the ancient poets.

From “The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,” by Washington Irving

Washington Irving describes the beauty of the land discovered by Christopher Columbus and the paradisiacal civilization that existed in some areas. “The river ran through a beautiful and fertile country; its waters were pure and salubrious, and well stocked with fish; its banks were covered with trees bearing the fine fruits of the island, so that in sailing along, the fruits and flowers might be plucked  with the hand from the branches which overhung the stream.”  Definitely, most of our European forefathers were more uncivilized than the Indians.