At first even the countryside was depressing, for the men of Ar, as a military policy, had devastated an area of some two or three hundred pasangs on their borders, cutting down fruit trees, filling wells, and salting the fertile areas. Ar had, for most practical purposes, surrounded itself with an invisible wall, a bleached region, forbidding and almost impassable to those on foot.
Tarnsman of Gor, page 73

It gradually became clear that the road was becoming less traveled. Weeds were growing between cracks in the stone flooring of the highway, and the ruts of the tharlarion carts had all but disappeared. We passed several crossroads, but I kept moving generally in the direction of Ko-ro-ba. What I would do when we reached the Margin of Desolation and the broad Vosk River, I didn�t know. The fields of Sa-Tarna were thinning out.
Tarnsman of Gor, pages 113-114

For several days, to the sound of the caravan bells, we made our way through the Margin of Desolation, that wild, barren strip of soil with which the Empire of Ar had girded its borders. Now, in the distance, we could hear the muffled roar of the mighty Vosk.
Tarnsman of Gor, page 129

Far below, I could see the burned, dead Margin of Desolation was dotted here and there with patches of green, where some handfuls of seed had blindly asserted themselves, reclaiming something of that devastated country for life and growth. Near one of the green stretches I saw what I first thought was a shadow, but as the tarn passed, it scattered into a scampering flock of tiny creatures, probably the small, three-toed mammals called qualae, dun-colored and with a stiff brushy mane of black hair.
Tarnsman of Gor, page 140-141

I took the tarn high, to bring a circle of some two hundred pasangs or so under my view. In the far distance I could see the silver wire I knew must be the great Vosk, could see the abrupt shift from the grassy plains to the Margin of Desolation. From the height I could look down on a portion of the Voltai Range, with its arrogant reddish heights, as it faded away to the east. To the southwest I could see dimly the evening light reflected from the spires of Ar, and to the north, approaching from the Vosk, I could see the glow from what must be thousands of cooking fires, the night�s camp of Pa-Kur.
Tarnsman of Gor, pages 146-147