EMIN PASHA’S ROMANCE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue VII, 17 February 1894, Page 164

EMIN PASHA’S ROMANCE.

The story of Emin Pasha’s life is a sad one. Some of its aspects have been made known in public record, but the romance that underlies the appearance of the prosaic spectacled German has never been told. Emin’s real name was Edward Schnitzer. After he had resided in Turkey some years he made the acquaintance of Ismail Pasha, not the ex Khedive, but a famous Turkish soldier, who held the Governorship of Scutari. He became the Pasha’s intimate friend and family physician. One day Ismail, overcoming, in the extremity of the hour, the prejudice of the Turk, admitted the young German doctor into the harem to attend on his wife, who seemed sick unto death. Schnitzer discovered in the patient the Hnngarian girl to whom in boyhood he had given his heart, and whom he still fondly loved. In course of time, by one of those bouleversements common enough in the career of Turkish officials, Ismail Pasha was deposed from bis Governorship and carried off to Trebizonde, where he was lodged in a dungeon. Schnitzer, then in bis thirtieth year, took charge of the young wife, and the two proceeded to Constantinople, where Schnitzer devoted himself to the task of obtaining the pardon and release of his old patron. This was brought about after a long delay, Ismail Pasha being taken into favour again and made Governor of Janini, in Albania. He did not long survive the horrors of his imprisonment, and on his death Schnitzer for the first time confessed bis love to the Hungarian, and in 1875 married her at Constantinople. That nothing should be needed to the completeness of the domestic tragedy, she died in childbirth, and Schnitzer, who had now assumed the name of Emin, closed his account with the civilised world.