{"book":"adl0957","page":142,"text":"105\n\nnoses, long faces and are of fair complexion. Their counte-\nnances have an air of manliness and deliberation. They are\nhardy and active, industrious and sober. No more potent\ntestimony to their power exists than the record of the Anglo-\nAfghan wars.\n\nTheir manners are frank and open. Though manly and\nindependent they are entirely free from conceit and ferocity.\nThey are remarkable for their prudence, good sense and humour.\n\nThey have always been ardent sportsmen. From time\nimmemorial they have realised that physical culture and sports\nare the important elements which enable one to overcome\ndifficulties and privations, and still remain cheerful, courageous\nand firm. Physical endurance, ability to co-ordinate all move-\nments on any terrain, and overcome parching heat and bitter\nfrost—these qualities are acquired by the Afghans as a result of\nconstant attention to national sports, such as horse-riding,\nmountaineering, and wrestling.\n\nEven in present-day Afghan life, sports and physical\nculture occupy an important part. Besides their own national\ngames, all modern European sports, such as football, volleyball,\nhockey, basketball, handball and tennis have been introduced\nand widely promoted throughout the country.\n\nAmong the Afghan games the one called Buzkashi (dragging\nthe goat) is indeed a feat of horsemanship. It is chiefly in\nvogue in Northern Afghanistan (Mazar, Maimana, and\nKataghan provinces). Like polo, it is played on horseback by\ntwo opposing teams, each consisting of 60 to 100 horsemen. The\nfirst thing to be done is to kill a goat, a calf or a sheep, and\nthen to place the carcass in the middle of a circle. When this\nis done, a signal is given, and all the riders make a dash at the\nbeheaded animal. The man who picks it up flings it across the","chars":1783,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00142.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/142","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/142","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."}}