{"book":"adl0957","page":16,"text":"5\nintelligent, hospitable and self-reliant. They have a very strong\nsense of nationalism. Indeed, pride of race and love of country\nare instilled in an Afghan from the cradle, and nothing induces\nhim to surrender that love of independence that seems to be the\nessence of his nature.\n\nThere is no caste in Afghan society; every Afghan thinks\nhimself as good as another. In fact, the political atmosphere of\nthe country is healthier for the delicate plant of democracy than\nanywhere else in the East.\n\nAfghanistan occupies a very important position in the\nstrategy and politics of Central Asia. Geography has made it\nthe great crossroad between North and South, East and West.\nIts location, its strategic importance, and last though not the\nleast, its invigorating climate and the grandeur and beauty of its\nmountain system make it one of the most interesting places in\nthe world to visit. Even to those who have neither hobbies nor\nenterprise, but want rest and recreation in a lovely country with\na pleasant climate and an abundance of delicious fruits, Afghan-\nistan would undoubtedly prove one of the best health-resorts in\nthe world. It is among those countries, which are still totally\nunsophisticated and unspoiled. Here are towns and villages\nwhere one may sleep or dine in comfort, and yet be surrounded\nwith the atmosphere of a culture as old as history itself. The\njaded visitor from the parched plains of the neighbouring count-\nries may regain health in its beautiful emerald green valleys,\nwhich, having escaped the contamination of manufacturing life,\nretain up to this day an ideal sylvan scenery and mediæval\ntranquillity.\n\nAfghanistan, once the crossroads between the East and the\nWest, after centuries of eclipse when the seas became the more","chars":1759,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00016.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/16","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/16","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."}}