University of Virginia Library

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, 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 nouè," she says; —"moin ouôuge: ou fai moin nouè nans pótrait-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—nouè conm poule-zo-nouè ("black as a black-boned hen!")

… And this red race is disappearing from St. Pierre—doubtless also from other plague-stricken centres.