THE DEATH OF GUIDE SOPHIA

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1303, 5 December 1911, Page 6

THE DEATH OF GUIDE SOPHIA

SKETCH Oi' HER CAREER. (By TclograpU-Prof3 Association.) Rotorua, December f. Tho well-known guide Sophia died ;.i 'Whakarewarewa early (his morning. She was the daughter of a British officer nnmod Cir;'V. her mother being of the Ngitliruainii tribo, Taranaki. Sim was horn cither in Turauaki or at the IV,ty of Islands about 85 years a>»o. She wont through tho awful experience at the time of tlii" Tarawcra eruption on .Tune 10. ISSS, hor whare at Ihe buried village of YTairoa affording shelter to some forty Native.-. Sophia guided the. last party round tho Terraces, this party including tho ill-fated -Mr. Bainbridge, who viewed the famous pink and \diito terraces, and she saw the phantom canoo that tho Natives regarded us a warning of disaster. Sophia, who was educated at the Mission .School in the Bay of Islands, was a flw.it talker, and her descriptions of the wonders of the thermal regions and of tho eruption wore a source of delight and interest" to tourists. Among tho notabilities whom Sophia conducted over the terraces was tho Duke of Edinburgh, and, ou tho occasion of tli present King's visit to Rotorua, she eonducted tho Duchess of York round Wljakarcwamva.