{"book":"adl0957","page":55,"text":"valley, such as oranges and lemons, and great varieties of\ndeciduous fruits-such as apricots, peaches, plums, pears,\napples, etc.\n\nBy the middle of March or the Naoroz (New Year's Day,\ncorresponding to the 21st of March) the winter breaks up. The\nspring moves in everywhere-showery, sometimes even windy\nand rather cold. But by the beginning of May the sun begins\nto assert itself; the weather continuing pleasant until the\nbeginning of June, when the increasing heat in most areas drives\nthe people to \"yelaq\", that is the countryside or the adjoining\nhills. Judging from the physique, strength and activities of the\ninhabitants, we should pronounce the Afghan climate on the\nwhole bracing and favourable to the human constitution. Those\nwho have felt the refreshing effects of the strong winds of its\nlofty mountains and highlands, need not fear for their health\nand comfort.\n\nThe great difference between the seasons and the quickness\nwith which they change has a striking effect on the customs and\ndress of the inhabitants. In winter all are clad in long woollen\ngarments or skins called Posteen.\n\nThey have fires constantly in their houses, and often sleep\naround stoves (or sandalies). When spring sets in and the\nsnow suddenly disappears, the country is covered with a green\ncarpet of young grass, the buds burst forth, and are soon\nfollowed by a profusion of beautiful gay flowers, reminding one\nof these lines:\n\nAnd here's that glorious life in bloom,\nGone are the blankets too,\nAs Nature starts to paint again,\nAnd man comes out to view.","chars":1547,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00055.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/55","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/55","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."}}