{"book":"adl0957","page":32,"text":"17\n\nZarmast, is a distance of 16 to 25 miles. The total fall from\nthese passes to Herat is about 2,000 feet. Between this range\nand the city there is a low ridge called the Koh-i-Mulla\nKhawaja, which dominates the city from a distance of about\nthree miles, only with a higher altitude of 600 to 800 feet.\n\nThe Speen Ghar (Mont Blanc).—This is an off-shoot of\nthe great Sulaiman Range. It overlooks the Afridi Tirah on\none side and the valley of Nangrahar (modern Jalalabad) on the\nother. Sikkaram, its highest peak, is 15,600 feet in height, and\nas it is covered with perpetual snow, the whole range being\ntermed Speen Ghar, i.e., the White Mountain. A high ridge of\nthis range penetrates the Jaji country, whence it stretches as\nfar as Jadran and Mangal territory (Pactia Province). The\nslope of this range on both sides, as well as of those ranges that\npenetrate the Southern Province (Pactia), are all covered with\ndense coniferous forests. There are pine trees and grand\ndeodars (cedars), and magnificent ilex (oak) trees, which throw\nbroad square spaces of solid shade.\n\nFrom here westward stretches a boundless vista of ridges\nand hazy plains, fainting to almost imperceptible tints of blue,\ntill it is only against the yellowing evening sky that the pale\nsilhouette of the hills that stand about Ghazni can be detected.\nHere lie the famous passes of Gomal, Tochi, Shuttargardan and\nPeiwar (or Tootgai). The first two figure in mediæval history\nand were selected early in the eleventh century, by the great\nSultan of Ghazni, Mahmud, who is said to have swept down\nthrough these passes with his cavalry and with a rapidity that\nseems incredible for those days.\n\nThe Sulaiman Range.—This mountain system serves as\na barrier between the Indus basin and the highlands of modern\nAfghanistan. The Sulaiman Hills are mostly rugged, barren","chars":1837,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00032.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/32","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/32","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."}}