{"book":"adl0957","page":28,"text":"15\n\nThis range is comparatively shorter and broader, maximum breadth being 60 miles and the average height 14,000 feet. The principal peaks from east to west are: Sheptal (15,000 ft.) Ouilian (16,900 ft.), and Kharzar (15,000 ft.) This range, too, is intersected by a series of narrow but difficult passes, which from time immemorial, have been used by invaders and travellers, and were also the chief trade routes between India and Central Asian countries. It was through these passes that the hordes of invaders, such as the Aryans, the Greeks, the Khushans, the Mongols, Tartars and others poured down on the fertile plains of India.\n\nThe best known passes of this range are: the Khawak (11,640 ft.), Khoknoll (11,450 ft.), Til (11,640 ft.), Salang and Bajgah (12,300 ft.), Kaoshan (14,340 ft.), Chahardar (11,300 ft.) Bamian (8,830 ft.), Akrobat, (10,255 ft.) Pelu (10,255 ft.) and Dandan Shikan (8,830 ft.). It was through the Bamian Pass that the famous Chinese pilgrim Huien Tsang, passed on his way to India in the early part of the 7th century A.D. He was very much impressed by the gigantic figures of Buddha on the face of the cliff, where they are still to be seen, though slightly disfigured.\n\nThis range throughout is barren of everything except some tiny bushes of pistachio and silphium (or asafoetida), that are mostly found on its northern slopes.\n\nMr. Douglas in his famous book, \"Beyond the High Himalayas,\" writes in this connection. \"The weird formations which the middle stretch of the Hindu Kush show are secondary to the colors of the rocks. I have seen nothing more beautiful than what the Hindu Kush discloses. These rooks are filled with yellow, red, green, pink, and purple. The air is so clear, the sun so brilliant, that every color, every shade is emphasized.","chars":1791,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00028.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/28","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/28","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."}}