We anchored for the night at Pai-sha, a rowdy little place, where they talked of killing us, situated at the point of junction with our stream of a northern tributary, navigable almost to Kuei-lin, the capital of this province.

The shop assistant referred me to the help desk on ground floor.

Only at a point where a river, a streamlet, even a balka (step-glen, ravine) opens into the sea, is the steep incline of the steppe-plateau broken. […] This sea-water lake is called liman in Ukrainian. Wherever a stream of great volume empties into a liman, the bar is severed at one or more places.

Now I can't get this out of my head - them hissing and whispering at one another like they're speaking in parseltongue.