{"book":"adl0957","page":82,"text":"57\n\ngives it, but for the horns, the appearance of a huge Newfound-\nland dog.\n\nThe yak is to the inhabitants of the Pamir what the\nreindeer is to the Laplanders in Northern Europe. Like the\nelephant it possesses a clear knowledge of what will bear its\nweight. If travellers are at fault, one of these animals is driven\nbefore them, and it is said that it avoids the hidden depths and\nchasms with admirable sagacity. Its footing is sure, and faults\nare seldom noticed. Should a fall of snow close a mountain pass\nto man and horse, a score of yaks driven ahead answer the\npurpose of the pioneers.\n\nThe yak usually frequents the mountain slopes and their\nlevel summits. Whenever the mercury does not rise above zero,\nit is the season most suitable for the activities of this animal.\nIf the snow on the elevated flats lies too deep for him to crop\nthe herbage, he rolls himself down the slopes and eats its way\nup again. The heat of summer sends the animal to what is\ntermed the old snow, that is, the region of eternal snow ; the\ncalf being retained below as hostage for the mother's return, in\nwhich she never fails.\n\nIn the summer the Kirghiz women, like the pastoral in-\nhabitants of the Alps, encamp in the higher valleys which are\ninterspersed among the snowy mountains and devote their whole\ntime to dairying. The men remain on the plains below and\nattend to the agricultural part of the establishment, but\noccasionally visit the upper stations ; and all speak with rapture\nof these summer wanderings.\n\nThe yak's hair is clipped once a year, in spring. The\nstrong, wiry and pliant hair of the tail is made into ropes, which\nfor strength is the equal of that manufactured from hemp. The\nhair of the body is woven into mats and also into a strong fabric","chars":1754,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00082.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/82","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/82","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."}}