{"book":"adl0957","page":251,"text":"200\n\nsystem drawn from the Oxus. The small lines of level\nmounds, which break the horizon of the plains of Babylon are\nalso to be seen here, and they denote the same thing. They are\nthe containing walls of canals which carried the Oxus waters\nthrough the hundreds of square miles of flat plains, where they\ncan never be carried again because of the alteration in the\nrespective levels of the plain and the river.\n\nThese rolling wavelike hills, with their marvellous spread of\ngrass and flowers in early summer, and which are dreary, wind-\nscoured and barren in winter, are excellent sheep grazing\ngrounds, and are the home of the famous Karakul sheep.\n\nThe city of Mazar-i-Sharif, lying in the midst of this plain,\nis only 90 miles north of Aibak. After crossing the plain of\nHazrat Sultan and Sabad, the traveller comes to the fertile valley\nof Khulm (previously called Tashqurghan), noted for its beautiful\ngarden of Jehan Numa (the Mirror of the World).\n\nKhulm is 351 miles from Kabul, and 38 miles from Mazari-\nSharif. Relics of the ancient city of Shahribanu (the Queen's\nCity) can be seen here up to this day. From here a road goes\ncast and leads to Kanduz and Khanabad, while the main road,\nrunning west, crosses a vast plain, and via Gorimar leads to\nMazari-Sharif.\n\nMazar-i-Sharif : (Population : 50,000 ; height 2,650 Ft.):\nMazar is now a thriving commercial centre of northern Afghanis-\ntan. Most of the trade to and from Russia passes through it, in\naddition to the huge trade that is done in Karakul skin through-\nout the district. The modern town of Mazar has been\nbuilt around a shrine, supposed to be the last resting place\n(Mazar) of the fourth Caliph, Hazrat-i-Ali. Some believe that\nafter the death of the Caliph, his body was brought here and","chars":1762,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00251.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/251","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/251","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."}}