midnight
The March night was drawing toward its end , pallid mists floated over the canal , the work of Hebrew bondmen which , as far as the eye could reach , intersected the plain , watering the fields and pastures along its course . Eastward and southward the sky was shrouded by dense veils of mist that rose from the large lakes and from the narrow estuaries that ran far up into the isthmus . The hot and dusty desert wind , which the day before had swept over the parched grass and the tents and houses of Succoth , had subsided at nightfall ; and the cool atmosphere which in March , even in Egypt , precedes the approach of dawn , made itself felt . Whoever had formerly entered , between midnight and morning , the humble frontier hamlet with its shepherd tents , wretched hovels of Nile mud , and by no means handsome farms and dwellings , would scarcely have recognized it now . Even the one noticeable building in the place -- besides the stately temple of the sungod Turn -- the large fortified store-house , presented at this hour an unfamiliar aspect . Its long white-washed walls , it is true , glimmered through the gloom as distinctly as ever , but instead of towering -- as usual at this time -- mute and lifeless above the slumbering town -- the most active bustle was going on within and around it . It was intended also as a defense against the predatory hordes of the Shasu , -LSB- Bedouins , who dwelt as nomads in the desert adjacent to Egypt , now regarded as part of Asia . -RSB-