Chapter XXVIII

... 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!"]