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II An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific

1
Influenza broke out among the natives
and they were very much alarmed, never
having had any disease like it before.
On 8 October 1843 the death toll was 20—the next day
a large canoe full of young men approached the ship.

2
When Captain Cook
entered the Pacific in 1769

it was a virgin ocean,
pristine and savage.

Its inhabitants lived a life
of primeval innocence.

Seventy years later firearms,
alcohol and disease

had hammered away at this life
until it crumbled before them.