Fifty Years Later

"Cook's account of his voyage in the Resolution was naturally of intense interest to the whaling and sealing industry in the Northern hemisphere … No one will ever know how many whales and seals were killed in the southern ocean in the ensuing fifty years.'
This, and all phrases following, from Alan Moorehead's The Fatal Impact, pp. 241 – 2.
the sealers came first
with the aid of Cook's charts
it is horribly easy to envisage
the carnage
in their methods there was
a devastating simplicity;
they clubbed the animals to death
the club used was a thick wooden stave
its end studded with nails
it is horribly easy
a devastating simplicity
no doubt the sailors got used to it:
the blood the mess of entrails
the barking and roaring of the terrified
animals trying to get away
the sailors no doubt got used to it
no one will ever know
such devastating simplicity
was it 10 million or 50 million?
the blood the mess … etc.
horribly easy to envisage
the killing went on and on
got used to it no doubt
horribly easy no one will ever
the sealers came first