Fareastdriver: Thanks for your #6402, I can only say the same for your contributions!
Danny: apologies for the sixty year booboo, which arose because that instalment was 'lifted' from memoirs compiled about ten years ago - I failed to spot the chrono error when checking through prior to posting, of course it should read (to be precise) 69 plus a bit years.
You are probably right about the bridge; it certainly carried a railway, but was some way out of town so could not have been the Howrah one.
In later life I discovered my great-great grandfather had died in Calcutta, some time in the 1820s; he was serving in the East India Company's private army, and probably was a victim of the combined effects of a tropical climate, contemporary poor hygiene standards and maybe too much claret as well - a common health hazard at the time, read William Hickey's memoirs of that period.
To all who have been kind enough to comment on my scribbling - the next instalment will follow shortly, but things will slow down a bit after that as I am still working on completion of the rest!