The Flats

In the lowlands throughout Eritrea, the acacia was about the only sign of a tree.  This tree appears to grow with very little water.  As such, a relatively small tree will be many years old.  An artist with wood I know, Dean Black, tells me that acacia is a very hard wood to work with and that it has an extremely fine grain.  From this point on, the railway is almost a tangent (a straight line) to the sea.  Even though the rail line is straight and the land appears flat, this spot is around 500 meters in altitude and is only about 22 kilometers from the seaport of Massawa.

This picture shows some trees other than acacia.  The clump of trees to the left may be one of the oasis mentioned in Africa Orientale Italiana.  I do not know what are the little stacks?

West of here are rolling hills where the line increases in altitude to 1000 meters in about 6 or 7 kilometers: