... It appears that the red race here, the race _capresse_, is
particularly liable to the disease. Every family employing capresses for
house-servants loses them;--one family living at the next corner has
lost four in succession....
The tint is a cinnamon or chocolate color;--the skin is naturally clear,
smooth, glossy: it is of the capresse especially that the term
"sapota-skin" (_peau-chapoti_) is used,--coupled with all curious creole
adjectives to express what is comely,--_jojoll, beaujoll_,[26] etc. The
hair is long, but bushy; the limbs light and strong, and admirably
shaped.... I am told that when transported to a colder climate, the
capre or capresse partly loses this ruddy tint. Here, under the tropic
sun, it has a beauty only possible to imitate in metal.... And because
photography cannot convey any idea of this singular color, the capresse
hates a photograph.--"_Moin pas noué_," she says;--"_moin ouôuge: ou
fai moin nouè nans pàtrait-à._" (I am not black: I am red:--you make
me black in that portrait.) It is difficult to make her pose before the
camera: she is red, as she avers, beautifully red; but the malicious
instrument makes her gray or black--_noué conm poule-zo-nouè_ ("black
as a blackboned hen!")
... And this red race is disappearing from St. Pierre--doubtless also
from other plague-striken centres.
[Footnote 26: I may cite in this relation one stanza of a creole
song--very popular in St. Pierre--celebrating the charms of a little
capresse:--
"Moin toutt jeine,
Goufa, gouàs, vaillant,
Peau di chapoti
Ka fai plaisi;--
Lapeau moin
Li bien poli;
Et moin ka plai
Mêmn toutt nhomme grave!"
--Which might be freely rendered thus:--
"I am dimpled, young,
Round-limbed, and strong,
With sapota-skin
That is good to see:
All glossy-smooth
Is this skin of mine;
And the gravest men
Like to look to me!"]