{"book":"adl0957","page":253,"text":"202\n\nThe tomb consists of two lofty cupolas, and it suggests that\nthe plan was copied from the Mussallas of Herat. The exterior\nwalls have been retiled. As it is now, there is nothing in the\nmausoleum to compare it with the buildings and tile-works of\nHerat; but all the same the general turquoise-blue effect is very\npleasing under the bright Afghan sky, surrounded as it is by old\ntrees and flocks of white pigeons flying around it.\n\n(3) Mazari-Sharif to Herat: (Distance 507 miles, via\nBalkh, Aqchah, Shibarghan, Shah Mardan, Maimanah,\nMurghab, Qala-i-Nao, and Sabzak-Pass).\n\n(a) Mazari-Sharif to Balkh (distance 12 miles): Balkh is\nfrankly a great disappointment. One has heard so much of\nthis city that was already of a hoary antiquity when Herodotus\nwrote his history, that one expects to see something of its past\ngrandeur. As one approaches Balkh by the Aqchah road from\nthe west, one looks anxiously around for some outward signs of\nits extreme antiquity. They are not altogether wanting, but\ntime and the mellowing hand of nature have rounded off the\nmounds of debris which lie scattered over miles of the surround-\ning country, covered with the fresh green of vegetation that\nleaves no sign by which to judge the age of its hoary past. It\nis difficult to get back farther than the age of the terrible\nconqueror Changez Khan. Beyond these surface ruins and\nbelow them, there must be cities, arrayed, as it were, in under-\nground flats, one piled on another, strata below strata, till we\nreach the debris of the pre-Semitic days of Western and Central\nAsia. It was here that the Aryans laid the foundation of their\nfirst city—Bakhdi of Lofty Banners. It existed centuries before\nthe era of Alexander the Great. Of its extreme antiquity there\ncan be no doubt. It is certain that at a very early date it was\nthe rival of Ninevah and of Babylon.","chars":1851,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00253.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/253","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/253","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."}}