blessed with all manner of uncouth
names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting
them for mere sounds, full of leviathanism, but signifying nothing.
    Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here,
and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But
I now leave my cetological system standing thus unfinished, even as the great
Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the
uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first
architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the cope-stone to posterity. God
keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught - nay,
but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
 

                                 Chapter XXXIII

                                The Specksynder

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place as any to
set down a little domestic peculiarity on shipboard, arising from the existence
of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other
marine than the whale-fleet.
    The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced by the
fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries and more ago, the
command of a whale-ship was not wholly lodged in the person now called the
captain, but was divided between him and an officer called the Specksynder.
Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalent
to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the captain's authority was restricted to
the navigation and general management of the vessel: while over the
whale-hunting department and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief
Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the
corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but
his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior
Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns.
Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a
whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the American Fishery he is not only
an important officer in the boat, but under certain circumstances (night-watches
on a whaling-ground) the command of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the
grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart
from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their
professional superior; though always, by them