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This year, perhaps because it was the Omen Year, the Wagon Peoples did not advance farther north than was necessary to ensure the welfare of the herds. They did not, in fact, even cross the western Cartius, far from cities, which they often do, swimming the bosk and kaiila, floating the wagons, the men often crossing on the backs of the swimming bosk. It was the Omen Year, and not a year, apparently, in which to risk war with far peoples, particularly not those of cities like Ar, whose warriors had mastered the tarn and might, from the air, have wrought great destruction on the herds and wagons.
. . .

On the back of the kaiila, the black lance in hand, bending down in the saddle, I raced past a wooden wand fixed in the earth, on the top of which was placed a dried tospit, a small, wrinkled, yellowish-white peachlike fruit, about the size of a plum, which grows on the tospit bush, patches of which are indigenous to the drier valleys of the western Cartius. They are bitter but edible.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Pages 58 - 59


Judges and craftsmen from Ar, hundreds of pasangs away, across the Cartius, were already at the stakes, inspecting them and preparing the ground between them. These men, as in every year, I learned, had been guaranteed safe passage across the southern plains for this event. The journey, even so, was not without its dangers, but they had been well recompensed, from the treasure chests of both Turia and the Wagon Peoples. Some of the judges, now wealthy, had officiated several times at the games. The fee for even one of their accompanying craftsmen was sufficient to support a man for a year in luxurious Ar.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 105


Also, perhaps not unimportantly, many of Turia's mercenary tarnsmen found themselves engaged in the time-consuming, distasteful task of supplying the city from distant points, often bringing food and arrow wood from as far away as the valleys of the eastern Cartius.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 182


"Can you swim?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. Then I inquired, "How is it that you, a Tuchuk, can swim?" I knew few Tuchuks could, though some had learned in the Cartius.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 188

The room itself is very lovely and might have been one of the chambers in the renowned baths of Turia. It was decorated with numerous exotic floral designs, done primarily in greens and yellows, representing the vegetation of a tropical river, perhaps the tropical belt of the Cartius, or certain of its tributaries far to the north and west. Besides the designs there were also, growing from planting areas recessed here and there in the marble walkway, broad-leafed, curling plants; vines; ferns; numerous exotic flowers; it was rather beautiful, but in an oppressive way, and the room had been heated to such an extent that it seemed almost steamy; I gathered the temperature and humidity in the room were desirable for the plantings, or were supposed to simulate the climate of the tropical area represented.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 203


"The tumits run best this time of year rather toward the Cartius," observed Kamchak.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 328


"Do the Warriors no longer guard the streets?" asked Kuurus.
"Some," said Portus. "But not enough. Many are engaged in the border disputes as far distant as the Cartius. Moreover, the caravans of Merchants are now given large and free guard."
Assassin of Gor     Book 5     Page 17


The slave girl sitting on the furs, for the kalika is played either sitting or standing, bent over her instrument, her hair falling over the neck of it, lost in her music, a gentle, slow melody, rather sad. I had heard it sung some two years ago by the bargemen on the Cartius, a tributary of the Vosk, far to the south and west of Ar.
Assassin of Gor     Book 5     Page 207


To the crowd's astonishment, but not to mine, he wheeled his tarn, a rare, gloriously plumaged jungle tarn from the tropical reaches of the Cartius, to block the first of the right center rings.
Assassin of Gor     Book 5     Page 368

The bad blood between Tyros and Ar had primarily to do with Tyros' financings of Vosk pirates, to harry river shipping and the northern borders of Ar. Vosk pirates now little bothered the realm of Ar, but the memories remained. Vosk traffic, to Ar, which has no sea port, is important. It permits her much wider trade perimeters than would otherwise be possible. Something similar is true of the Cartius, far to her south. Unfortunately for Ar, or perhaps fortunately for the maritime powers of Thassa, it is almost impossible to bring a large ship or barge through the Vosk's delta to the sea. Ar remains substantially a land power, but the river traffic, on the Vosk and, to the south, on the Cartius, is important to her. Tyros' financing of Vosk pirates, over the past century, was an attempt to deprive Ar of the Vosk markets, and make those markets more dependent on overland shipments of goods, originally debarked at shore ports, brought to them by the cargo ships of Tyros, and other maritime powers.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Pages 80 - 81


That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt; and a preparation formed from a disease calculus scraped from the intestines of the rare Hunjer Long Whale, the result of the inadequate digestion of cuttlefish. Fortunately, too, this calculus is sometimes found free in the sea, expelled with feces. It took more than a year to distill, age, blend and bond the ingredients.
Marauders of Gor     Book 9     Page 114

I regarded the vast map on the floor of the chamber. I could see, high on the map, Ax Glacier, Torvaldsland, and Hunjer and Skjern, and Helmutsport, and, lower, Kassau and the great green forests, and the river Laurius, and Laura and Lydius, and, lower, the islands, prominent among them Cos and Tyros; I saw the delta of the Vosk, and Port Kar, and, inland, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, and Thentis, in the mountains of Thentis, famed for her tarn flocks; and, to the south, among many other cities, Tharna, of the vast silver mines; I saw the Voltai Range, and Glorious Ar, and the Cartius and far to the south, Turia; and near the shore of Thassa, the islands of Anango and Ianda, and on the coast, the free ports of Schendi and Bazi. There were, on this map, hundreds of cities, and promontories and peninsulas, and rivers and inland lakes and seas.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 7

I looked downward. Though on the map it occupied only some several feet of the floor, in actuality it was vast. It was roughly in the shape of a gigantic, lengthy trapezoid, with eastward leaning sides. At its northwestern corner lay Tor. West of Tor, on the Lower Fayeen, a sluggish, meandering tributary, like the Upper Fayeen, to the Cartius, lay the river port of Kasra, known for its export of salt. It was in this port that the warehouses of Ibn Saran, salt merchant, currently the guest of Samos of Port Kar, were to be found. This city, too, was indicated in the cording of his agal, and in the stripes of his djellaba.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 32


My master, with his men, in a bold coup, had several weeks ago stolen the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus from among her retainers, on her journey to be joined in companionship to Thandar of Ti, of Ti, of the Four Cities of Saleria, those comprising the Salerian Confederation. The motivation for this abduction, as well as the motivation for the companionship originally, was apparently political. The companionship was to weld commercial and political relationships between Fortress of Saphronicus and the Salerian Confederation, which was an aggressive and expanding league of cities northeast of the Vosk. The growing power of the Salerian Confederation was not viewed with favor by the city of Ar, which, lying in Gor's northern hemisphere, is the major power between the Vosk and the Cartius, and between the Voltai Range and Thassa, the sea. The Ubar of Ar, whose name is Marlenus, is said to be an ambitious and brilliant man, proud and courageous, and imperialistic. He might view the Salerian Confederation as eventually being capable, if it continued to expand, of posing a threat to Ar, either to its security or to its ambitions. As geopolitical matters now stood a plurality of disunited cities, most of them rather small, lay scattered in the territories north of the Vosk. This created, for a strong state, such as Ar, defensively, a reasonably stable, secure border, and, with respect to her possible ambitions, an attractive, exploitable power vacuum. The growth of the Salerian Confederation, on the other hand, might conceivably alter this situation to the detriment of Ar. If the cities of Saleria should multiply and grow strong, their power might balance or exceed that of great Ar itself. Armies and tarn cavalries might then move south. Already, only some years ago, Ar had tasted the bitterness of enemies within her walls, when, in the political confusion following the temporary loss of her Home Stone and the deposition of her Ubar, Marlenus, there had been a revolt of tributary cities, organized and led by Pa-Kur, Master of the Caste of Assassins. The horde of Pa-Kur, as it is spoken of, had set siege to glorious Ar. Initiates, inept and cowardly, then holding power in Ar, had surrendered the city, an act which to this day in Ar has tended to damage the prestige of that caste. On the day of Ar's surrender itself was she saved, by the uprising of her very citizens, violent in the streets, abetted by the forces of certain cities of the north, notably Ko-ro-ba and Thentis. This is told of in the songs. One of the heroes in the songs is called Tarl of Bristol. Marlenus, too, is a hero in such songs. He later retook the throne of Ar, following upon the forcible, civil overthrew of Cernus of Ar, declared a false Ubar. He sits now upon the throne of Ar. He is sometimes spoken of as the Ubar of Ubars.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Pages 144 - 145


His caravan had been delayed in arriving at the Sardar because of spring floods on the Cartius.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 100


For a terrible instant it had seemed as bright as day, with a brightness that most of the People, in their northern regions, had never known, a brightness that might have struck the white sands of the blazing Tahari or the green jungles of the rain forests of the eastern Cartius.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 432


Slavers, for example, sometimes think of themselves as being of the Merchants, and sometimes as being a separate caste. They do have their own colors, blue and yellow, those of the Merchants being white and gold. Too, are the bargemen of the Southern Cartius a caste or not? They think of themselves as such, but many do not see the matter in the same light.
Fighting Slave of Gor     Book 14     Page 211

I made my way now toward the quays of Fina.
. . .

"You there, Fellow," said a captain, at the quays. "You seem strong. Look you for work?"

"I am intending to go downriver," I said.

"We are bound for Tafa," he said. "We are short an oars-man."

The next towns west on the river were Victoria and Tafa.

West of Tala was Port Cos, which had been founded by settlers from Cos over a century ago. The major towns west of Port Cos, discounting minor towns, were Tetrapoli, Ven and Turmus, Ven at the junction of the Ta-Thassa Cartius and the Vosk, and Turmus, at the eastern end of the Vosk's great delta, the last town on the river itself.

"I would go to Victoria," I said. That was the next town west on the river.
Rogue of Gor     Book 15     Pages 64 - 65


I did not suppose that the world ended a bit beyond the waters of Tyros and Cos, or beyond the Farther Islands, even far beyond them, that at some point, some brink, Thassa plunged a thousand pasangs downward, like a planetary waterfall, only to be lifted by fiery Tor-tu-Gor, Light Upon the Home Stone, the common star of Earth and Gor, as might be a drop of evaporating rain, thence to be bestowed in the east, in tens of thousands of storms, to flow then, again, in time, into the mighty Vosk, the sinuous Cartius, the tropical Ua, and a hundred other rivers, to continue its great cycle.
Swordsmen of Gor  : : : Book 29  : : : Page 436

"I found a fellow in a marsh beside the Cartius," he said, "bitten at the shoulder, ribs and intestines torn from his body, who cried out the words, 'Kur, Kur,' and died."

"He was delirious," I said. "A larl commonly attacks in such a way, fastening on the neck or shoulder, and clawing out the belly, and organs."