DEATH OF SOPHIA, THE MOST PICTURESQUE FIGURE IN GEYSERLAND.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 24, 13 December 1911, Page 31

DEATH OF SOPHIA, THE MOST PICTURESQUE FIGURE IN GEYSERLAND.

When Hip Tprracet* werp in their glory Sophia, the central figure of the guides of that wonderful neighbourhood had a reputation that travelled further than any New Zealander of the 'lay. It was she who saw the phantom canoe of evil omen on Lake Itotomahana the day before the awful eruption of IXXG. When she grew too old for guiding Sophia acted as caretaker of the Maori House at Whakarewarewa, where she was an object of even more interest than tin* strange carvings she used to explain to tourists. Sophia, who was eighty-flve at the time of her death, was not the daughter of an English officer as stated in some of the papers. Her father was a Scotch gunsmith named Alexander Grey, who settled in Hokianga, and married a native woman from Taranaki.