{"book":"adl0957","page":243,"text":"192\n\nof the traveller to itself. This is called the city of Zahak-i-\nMaran. A little further the valley widens and the city of\ncaves, more then 2,000 in number, appears. This is the historic\ncity of Bamian, now in ruins, lying at the foot of a hill, 8,400\nfeet above sea-level.\n\nThe Valley of Bamian, deep sunk in the great plateau, is\nbetween 8,000 and 9,000 feet above the sea, and the passes lead-\ning out of it are over 10,000 feet. To the south is the magificent\nsnow-capped array of Koh-i-Baba, the culminating group of the\ncentral water-parting of Afghanistan, running to 16,000 and\n17,000 feet. Rocky and toothbreaking, as may be the passes of\nthese northern hills, they are all practicable at certain times and\nseasons, but for months they are closed by the deep snow of\nwinter storms, and the fierce terror of a blizzard. The deep valleys\ntraversing the storm-ridden plateau are often exceedingly beauti-\nful, and form a strange contrast to the dull and barren rocky\nridges that appear on all sides.\n\nIt is the mystery of its unrecorded history and the local\nevidences of the departed glory of Buddhism, which render\nBamian the most interesting valley of Afghanistan. Bamian,\nthough today completely in ruins, speaks eloquently of its one-\ntime grandeur. Each year has seen some striking revelation of\nits past history or some beautiful addition to the magnificent col-\nlection in the Museum of Kabul. Much still remains to be ex-\ncavated to throw more light on the deeper secrets of its past his-\ntory.\n\nMassive ruins still look down from the bordering cliffs, and\nfor six or seven miles these cliffs are prierced by an infinity of\ncave dwellings. Little is left of the ancient city, except its\nacropolis (known as Shahr-i-Ghulghula), which crowns an","chars":1761,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00243.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/243","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/243","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."}}