Description of Port Kar

Port Kar lies in the delta of the Vosk river, at the edge of the Tamber Gulf which leads to the Thassa. The nearest solid land is hundreds of pasangs away, across the marshes.

The Vosk Delta - quicksand
“Do you know the delta of the Vosk ?” he asked.
“I once traversed it,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“It is treacherous, and trackless,” I said. “It covers thousands of square pasangs. It is infested with insects, snakes and tharlarion. Marsh sharks even swim among its reeds. In it there is little solid ground. Its waters are usually shallow, seldom rising above the chest of a tall man. The footing is unreliable. There is much quicksand. It protects Port Kar from the east. Few but rencers can find their way about in it. Too, for most practical purposes, they keep it closed to traffic and trade.”
Mercenaries

"..is a vast, disjointed mass of holdings, each almost a fortress, piled almost upon one another, divided and crossed by hundreds of canals. "
Kind of like venice, main navigation around Port is on water in the canals.

"In Port Kar, incidentally, there are none of the towers often encountered in the northern cities of Gor."
(No cylinders in Port Kar)

"...a mass of holdings, each individually defensible, room to room, each separated from the others by the canals which, in their hundreds, crossed and divided the city"

Buildings made of brick and stone

"The buildings lining the canals on each side were dark, but, here and there, in the side of one, near a window, was a torch. I looked at the brick, the stone, watched the patterns and shadows playing on the walls of the buildings of Port Kar."

"I passed iron doors, narrow, in the walls. These doors usually had a tiny observation panel in them, which could be slid back. The walls were sheer. They were generally windowless until some fifteen feet above the ground. Yards, and gardens and courts, if they exist, are generally within the house, not outside it."
Windows up on second story (Port Kar is a dangerous city after all) and built on a marsh there is *very little* soil/ground/yard/garden. Note the iron doors with peepholes.

"I trod the narrow walkway lining the canal."

"I trod a walkway beside a canal, my sea bag over my shoulder. The air was damp. Here and there small lamps, set in niches, high in stone walls, or lanterns, hung on iron projections, shed small pools of light on the sides of buildings and illuminated, too, in their secondary ambience, the stones of the sloping walkway on which I trod, one of many leading down to the wharves."

"There were pilings along the walkway, to which, here and there, small boats were moored. The walkway itself varied from some five feet to a yard in width."
Wagons do not drive up to the Captains Hall or anywhere else in Port Kar, the walkways are too narrow, they float in on barges.

"Somewhere I heard the squealing and thrashing of two of the giant urts fighting in the water, among the floating garbarge."
It's a dirty city.

"The ships of the captains were usually moored, beyond this, within the city, in the mooring lakes fronting on their holdings and walled. And those who had used the open wharves did not seem to have suffered damage."

"My treasures were soon increased considerably, and the number of ships in my fleet, by captured prizes, was readically augmented, so much so that I could not begin to wharf them within the lakelike courtyard of my holding. With gold won by sword at sea I purchased extensive wharfage and several warehouses on the western edge of Port Kar."

"Outside the holding, on the broad promenade before of the holding, bordering on the lakelike courtyard, with the canal gate beyond, I ordered a swift, tharlarion-prowed longboat made ready."