{"book":"adl0957","page":123,"text":"90\n\nfrom Kabul to Kataghan passes through this valley enroute to\nthe famous Khawak Pass, at a height of 11,640 feet above sea-\nlevel.\n\nAmong other places of interest around Kabul, as regards\nclimate and natural beauty, mention may be made of Paghman,\nwhich is picturesquely set up in the lap of the range of the same\nname, some 16 miles west of the capital. It is a small,\npicturesque town, and the whole locality is exceptionally clean,\nhealthy, calm and serene.\n\nThe climate of the Province of Kabul, on the whole, is\nwholesome and bracing. The air, owing to altitude, is rare and\nat first, a new-comer experiences some little difficulty in breath-\ning when walking uphill. There is usually little rainfall during\nthe summer. Thunderstorms, with heavy downfalls of rain are\nfrequent during early spring. In these storms, the flashes of\nlightning are almost continuous and the peals of thunder are\ndeafening and without cessation, but the electricity is often ex-\npended on the heights of the mountains, and there are few cases\non record of a house being struck.\n\nIn winter, heavy falls of snow are common, and when the\nwind causes it to drift, the small houses and hamlets are some-\ntimes half covered with snow. Electric as well as telephone\nservice is interrupted and motoring becomes impossible except\nfor cars equipped with chains. The temperature sometimes,\nespecially during cold waves, falls to 30° below zero C. At\nHazarajat the winter is even more severe, and traditions tell of\ndisastrous snowstorms. Avalanches are also very common\ncausing great damage to life and property.\n\nBut even during winter the days are mostly bright and\ncheerful, and the sky clears soon after the fall of snow. The sun","chars":1708,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00123.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/123","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/123","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/books/adl0957/","source_pdf":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/pdf/adl0957_download.pdf","rights":{"image":{"statement":"Public domain. NYU states: \"All works presented on this website are, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. The images available on this website may be freely reproduced, distributed and transmitted by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.\"","uri":"http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/","holder":"New York University Libraries","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/about.html","delivery":"Images are served from a copy mirrored by this project, not from NYU's servers, under the reproduction terms above.","endorsement":"This is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by New York University."},"text":{"statement":"Machine-generated transcription, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. No warranty of accuracy: see the provenance block on every page.","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/","holder":"Steps Ventures"}},"provenance":{"text_produced_by":"gemini-3.1-pro-preview","thinking_level":"low","read_completed":"2026-08-09","per_page_confidence":null,"per_page_confidence_note":"Not recorded during the corpus run. No calibrated per-page score exists, and none is estimated here.","human_reviewed":false,"accuracy_context":"Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting.","primary_source":"The page image. The text is an index into it."}}