noon
The Libyan hilltops were , at that instant , illuminated by the sun , and Kenkenes , in obedience to lifelong training , rested his oars and bent his head . When he pulled on again he did not realize that he had been , with the stubbornness of habit , maintaining the breach between him and Rachel . There was no thought in his mind to give over his faith . At noon , weary with heat , hunger and heavy labor , he drew up at Hak-heb , on the western side of the Nile , fifty miles above Memphis . The town was the commercial center for the pastoral districts of the posterior Arsinoëite nome -- Nehapehu . Here were brought for shipment the wine , wheat and cattle of the fertile pocket in the Libyan desert . Being at a season of commercial inactivity , when the farmers were awaiting the harvest , the sunburnt wharves were almost deserted .