The Cut nearly bisected the city from west to east. Its western end opened into Coral Bay and was once home to the city's harbour. Instead of docks there were long piers and causeways carved into the cliffs. Above the harbour's mouth was netting spanning the Cut where locals known as cat-men tethered anchors and sway-lines to keep ships in place. The Cut was too deep for traditional anchors. The cat-men lived with their wives and children in sealskin-roofed huts and driftwood sheds built among the nets. After the city's occupation by the Pannion Domin, they had been starved by lack of sea-traffic, and the only cat-men still remaining were the salt-dried corpses still tangled in the harbour's nets.