ten o'clock in the morning
Murchison had succeeded in assembling together fifteen hundred artisans . Attracted by the high pay and considerable bounties offered by the Gun Club , he had enlisted a choice legion of stokers , iron-founders , lime-burners , miners , brickmakers , and artisans of every trade , without distinction of color . As many of these people brought their families with them , their departure resembled a perfect emigration . On the 31st of October , at ten o'clock in the morning , the troop disembarked on the quays of Tampa Town ; and one may imagine the activity which pervaded that little town , whose population was thus doubled in a single day . During the first few days they were busy discharging the cargo brought by the flotilla , the machines , and the rations , as well as a large number of huts constructed of iron plates , separately pieced and numbered . At the same period Barbicane laid the first sleepers of a railway fifteen miles in length , intended to unite Stones Hill with Tampa Town . On the first of November Barbicane quitted Tampa Town with a detachment of workmen ; and on the following day the whole town of huts was erected round Stones Hill .