V.V. (12) "the marches of the Kalahari"

[jbor]

    ... the farm of one Foppl, in the northern part of the district,
    between the Karas range and the marches of the Kalahari ...
                                                (230.4 up)

When I first read this I thought it said "marshes" and, indeed, there are
marsh symbols on the map all along the south-western edges of the Kalahari.
When I read it a second time I thought it must be a typo. Then I looked up
"march" in the dictionary:

march n. 1. also called marchland, a frontier, border, or boundary of the
land lying along it, often of disputed ownership.

Interestingly, I think that it's actually the Kalahari which is disputing
"ownership" here, and this resonates with the opening of Gebrail the
carriage driver's narrative back when Stency was last telling tales:

      The desert creeps in on man's land. Not a fellah, but he does own
    some land. Did own. From a boy, he has repaired the wall, mortared,
    carried stone heavy as he, lifted, set in place. Still the desert
    comes. Is the wall traitor, letting it in? Is the boy possessed
    by a djinn who makes his hands do the work wrong? Is the desert's
    attack too powerful for any boy, or wall, or dead father or mother?
      No. The desert moves in. It happens, nothing else. No djinn in the
    boy, no treachery in the wall, no hostility in the desert. Nothing.
                                                (82.19)

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