Page image — the source of record
Machine transcription
189
rising higher and higher till the view is terminated by the snow-clad summits of the Hindu-Kush. The plain is watered by innumerable irrigation streams, cut from the Kabul and the Paghman Rivers, and during summer it is covered with smiling green fields and is gay with flowers of every description. The fields and lanes are all fringed by rows of stately poplars, willows and sinjits. The orchards richly stocked with fruit trees, flowers and vegetables, diversify the landscape. The Kabul and the Paghman Rivers, their banks shaded by trees, and here and there guarded by forts, wind leisurely through this happy valley. Some of the fine public buildings—those of the civil hospitals, Rifqi Sanatorium, Medical College, Malaria Institute, Faculty of Science, Government Poultry and Dairy Farms, and the Teachers' Training College—are also located in the different parts of this famous valley.
The famous shrines in and around Kabul are those of Ashuqan-o-Arifan, Khawaja-Safa, Shah-i-do-Shumshera, Shah Shahid, Timur Shah, Hazrat Jabir-i-Ansar, Sakhi, Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, the late King Mohammad Nadir Shah Shahid, and Sayyed Jamaluddin Afghani.
(2) Kabul to Mazari-Sharif (distance 389 miles):
After crossing the Khair-Khana Pass 4 miles north-west of Kabul, the traveller finds himself in a spacious and beautiful plain, called Kohdaman or Samti-Shamali (old names—Paropamisadæ and Capisia). This Kohdaman (the skirts of the hills), which intervenes between Alexanderia-ad-Caucasum (probably modern Charikar) and Kabul, is one of the most fascinating valleys of Afghanistan.
The road which intersects this beautiful valley is level for the most part, and is flanked with mulberry trees. There is a
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. How this was measured.