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.
[_]
* 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,
Gouôs, gouâs, vaillant,
Peau di chapoti
Ka fai plaisi;—
Lapeau moin
Li bien poli;
Et moin ka plai
Mênm 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 at me!"
