February 24, 1842

Janet Ann Ross (February 24, 1842 to 1927) was born a Duff Gordon. She was
"... the daughter of Alexander Cornewall Duff Gordon (1811–1872), and his wife, Lucie Austin .... Her parents moved in prominent social and literary circles..". (Some of this post comes from British Museum notes but I am not sure if all of it does.) Her husband was Henry James Ross, who had, in his career

'.... In 1848... supervised excavations at Nineveh on behalf of his friend Austen Henry Layard...[By the 1860s] he [had] became director of the Ottoman Bank (of which Layard had been one of the founders). He retired to a villa near Florence in 1869 and died there some thirty years later. His early correspondence was edited and published posthumously in 1902 by his widow, Janet Ross, as a book entitled ...Letters from the East 1837-1857'.

The volume contains a glimpse of another time.

'.... I was very sorry to have missed my name sake Dr Ross at Baghdad who has as great a love of animals as myself. Among the pets allowed to roam at will about his house is a leopard who puts its paws on the window sill and gazes down into the street below When a sheep or a donkey passes he springs down upon them and breaks their necks leaving the doctor to pay the damage...'

Another time and place.