{"book":"adl0957","page":77,"text":"54\nAnimals\nAfghanistan is noted for its wild animals. The most im-\nportant of these are: the wolf, fox, hyena, wild dog, wild cat,\njungle cat, common leopard, small Indian fox, mongoose, wild\nsheep, onager (wild ass), mole, talpidae, Indian shrew,\ncollared-hedgehog, bats, jerboa, gerbit, deer, oorial, ibex,\npica and hare.\nThe wolves are particularly formidable during winter in\nthe cold districts when the land is covered with snow, and they\nroam about in search of food. They often form packs and,\ncoming down the hills, prowl near villages, frequently destroying\ncattle, sometimes even attacking men. They are said to run\nahead of their victim, and with their hind legs throw up snow\non his face and body, and, when they see that his hands and\nfeet are benumbed by the effect of snow, they fall upon him and\ntear him to pieces. During winter one hears strange stories\nabout the daring of this ferocious animal.\nThe villagers use various methods to defend themselves\nwhen attacked. When one of them is pursued by a wolf, with no\nfire-arms to frighten him off, he generally follows this simple\nmethod to get rid of his enemy. Tying one of his shoes to the\nend of his turban, and holding the other end in his hand, he\nlets the shoe trail after him. The wolf coming nearer his\nvictim is attracted by the shoe and tries to catch it, but finding\nit moving forward, leaps aside. So this continues; the shoe keeping\nthe wolf occupied and at a respectable distance. Meanwhile\nthe villager, if fortunate, reaches his destination, and the wolf,\nfinding his life in danger, makes for the neighbouring hills.\nThe bear is also very common in all the wooded districts, but\nit seldom quits its haunts. The bears are of two colours, black","chars":1725,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00077.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/77","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/77","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."}}