Approaching by Ship

I now regarded again the brownish stains in the water. Still we could not see land. Yet I knew that land must be nigh. Already, though we were still perhaps thirty or forty pasangs at sea, one could see clearly in the water the traces of inland sediments. These would have been washed out to sea from the Kamba and Nyoka rivers. These stains extend for pasangs into Thassa. Closer to shore one could mark clearly the traces of the Kamba to the north and the Nyoka to the south, but, given our present position, we were in the fans of these washes. The Kamba, as I may have mentioned, empties directly into Thassa; the Nyoka, on the other hand, empties into Schendi harbor, which is the harbor of the port of Schendi, its waters only then moving thence to Thassa.

Kamba, incidentally, is an inland word, not Gorean. It means rope. Similarly the word Nyoka means serpent. Ushindi means Victory. Thus Lake Ushindi might be thought of as Lake Victory or Victory Lake. It was named for some victory over two hundred years ago won on its shores. The name of the tiny kingdom or ubarate which had won the victory is no longer remembered. Lake Ngao, which was discovered by Shaba, and named by him, was named for a shield, because of its long, oval shape. The shields in this area tend to have that shape. It is also an inland word, of course. The Ua River is, literally, the Flower River. I have chosen, however, to retain the inland words, as they are those which are commonly used. There are, of course, many languages spoken on Gor, but that language I have called Gorean, in its various dialects, is the lingua franca of the planet. It is spoken most everywhere, except in remote areas. One of these remote areas, of course, is the equatorial interior. The dialects of the Ushindi region I will usually refer to as the inland dialects. To some extent, of course, this is a misnomer, as there are many languages which are spoken in the equatorial interior which would not be intelligible to a native speaker of the Ushindi area. It is useful, however, to have some convenient way of referring to the linguistic modalities of the Ushindi area. Gorean, incidentally, is spoken generally in Schendi. The word Schendi, as nearly as I can determine, has no obvious, direct meaning in itself. It is generally speculated, however, that it is a phonetic corruption of the inland word Ushindi, which, long ago, was apparently used to refer to this general area. In that sense, I suppose, one might think of Schendi, though it has no real meaning of its own, as having .an etiological relationship to a word meaning ‘Victory’. The Gorean word for victory is "Nykus," which expression seems clearly influenced by "Nike," or "Victory," in classical Greek. Shaba usually named his discoveries, incidentally, in one or another of the inland dialects. He speaks several fluently, though his native tongue is Gorean, which is spoken standardly in Anango, his island. The inland language, or, better, one of its dialects, is, of course, the language of the court of Bila Huruma, Shaba’s patron and supporter.

Docking

I had not realized the harbor at Schendi was so large. It must have been some eight pasangs wide and some two or three pasangs in depth. At its eastern end, of course, at one point, the Nyoka, channeled between stone embankments, about two hundred yards apart, flows into it. The Nyoka, because of the embankments, enters the harbor much more rapidly than it normally flows. It is generally, like the Kamba, a wide, leisurely river. Its width, however, about two pasangs above Schendi, is constricted by the embankments. This is to control the river and protect the port. A result, of course, of the narrowing, the amount of water involved being the same, is an increase in the velocity of the flow. In moving upstream from Schendi there is a bypass, rather like a lock system, which provides a calm road for shipping until the Nyoka can be joined. This is commonly used only in moving east or upstream from Schendi. The bypass, or "hook," as it is called, enters the Nyoka with rather than against its current. One then brings one’s boat about and, by wind or oar, proceeds upstream.

The smell of spices, particularly cinnamon and cloves, was now quite strong. We had smelled these even at sea. One smell that I did not smell to a great degree was that of fish. Many fish in these tropical waters are poisonous to eat, a function of certain forms of seaweed on which they feed. The seaweed is harmless to the fish but it contains substances toxic to humans. The river fish on the other hand, as far as I know, are generally wholesome for humans to eat. Indeed, there are many villages along the Kamba and Nyoka, and along the shores of Lake Ushindi, in which fishing is the major source of livelihood. Not much of this fish, however, is exported from Schendi. I could smell, however, tanning fluids and dyes, from the shops and compounds of leather workers. Much kailiauk leather is processed in Schendi. brought to the port not only from inland but from north and south, from collection points, along the coast. I could also smell tars and resins, naval stores. Most perhaps, I could now smell the jungles behind Schendi. This smell, interestingly, does not carry as far out to sea as those of the more pungent spices. It was a smell of vast greeneries, steaming and damp, and of incredible flowers and immensities of rotting vegetation.

There are more than forty merchant wharves at Schendi, each one of which, extending into the harbor, accommodates four ships to a side. The inmost wharves tend to have lower numbers, on the starboard side of the port, as one enters the harbor.

I had not realized that Schendi was as large or busy a port as it was. Many of the wharves were crowded and there were numerous ships moored at them. On the wharves and in the warehouses, whose great doors were generally open, I could see much merchandise. Most in evidence were spice kegs and hide bales, but much else, too, could be seen, cargos in the warehouses and on the wharves, some waiting, some being actively carried about, being embarked or disembarked.

Inspection

Two men from the desk of the nearest wharf praetor, he handling wharves six through ten, a scribe and a physician, boarded the ship. The scribe carried a folder with him. He would check the papers of Ulafi [ship's captain], the registration of the ship, the arrangements for wharfage and the nature of the cargo. The physician would check the health of the crew and slaves. Plague, some years ago, had broken out in Bazi, to the north, which port had then been closed by the merchants for two years. In some eighteen months it had burned itself out, moving south and eastward. Bazi had not yet recovered from the economic blow. Schendi’s merchant council, I supposed, could not be blamed for wishing to exercise due caution that a similar calamity did not befall their own port.

The scribe, with Ulafi, went about his business. I, with the crew members, submitted to the examination of the physician. He did little more than look into our eyes and examine our forearms. But our eyes were not yellowed nor was there sign of the broken pustules in our flesh.

~"Explorers of Gor" Chapter 6~