on
the east and beyond. When I first came to Calcutta this space was
occupied by a very mediaeval, ancient, and old-fashioned building
having a flagged, paved courtyard in front, surrounded by high brick
walls. It divided Canning Street into two distinct sections,
effectually obstructing through communication between east and west,
except for the narrow strip of passage above referred to. The place
was then known as it is at the present day as Aloe Godown or Potato
Bazaar, and was in the occupation of George Henderson & Co. as an
office when they were agents of the Borneo Jute Co., afterwards
converted into the Barnagore Jute Co. When it was pulled down, it of
course opened out free communication between east and west and allowed
of the erection of the buildings we see on the north and south of the
eastern portion. Whilst on this subject I must confess to a lapse of
memory in respect of what Clive Row was like at that particular
period. I am half inclined to the belief that it did not exist as an
ordinary thoroughfare and had no houses on it; also that more or less
it was filled up by the compounds of the various houses situated on
the western side of China Bazaar. At the same time, however, it may
have given access of very restricted dimensions to the north and west
of Aloe Godown, but the entrance which we always used was the gateway
in Canning Street facing due west.

The next improvement, that I recollect, this time in connection with
the building of new business premises, was when Jardine Skinner & Co.
vacated their old offices which were situated on the site of Anderson
Wright & Co.'s and Kettlewell Bullen & Co.'s present offices, and
removed to their present very handsome quarters which they have for so
long occupied. I very well recollect the style of their old place of
business and how the exterior strongly reminded me of the cotton
warehouses in Liverpool. The interior was a big, rambling, ramshackle
kind of a place with but few pretensions to being an office such as we
see at the present day.

[Illustration: _Photo. by Bourne & Shepherd_ Town Hall, Calcutta.]

[Illustration: _Photo. by Bourne & Shepherd_ Site of Black Hole of
Calcutta]

The whole was of course eventually pulled down, as was also a similar
range of buildings in the south of Clive Ghaut Street on which
Macneill & Co.'s offices were built.

It has just occurred to me whilst writing that it might perhaps be a
matter of some interest to br