In April 1817, a cobbler in the English village of Almondsbury encountered a bewildered young woman wearing strange clothes and speaking an incomprehensible gibberish. Taken to the local magistrate, Samuel Worrall, and his wife Elizabeth, the mysterious stranger captivated the household with her exotic manners, refusal to sleep on a bed, and devotion to a mysterious deity she called Allah Tallah. Soon, a Portuguese sailor named Manuel Eynesso claimed he could decipher her dialect.
According to his translation, she was Princess Caraboo from the island of Javanese origin named Javasu. She alleged that she had been kidnapped by pirates, jumped overboard in the Bristol Channel, and swam ashore to safety. British gentry immediately embraced her as an exotic celebrity.
Scholars, linguists, and dignitaries rushed to analyze her written symbols and admire her archery, tree-climbing, and improvised religious rituals. For months, Mary Baker—the real woman behind Caraboo—enjoyed luxurious lodging and immense popularity. She was actually a cobbler's daughter from Devon who had worked as a servant across England and developed a talent for mime and invented languages to survive wandering the countryside.
The grand illusion unraveled when a lodging-house keeper named Mrs. Neale recognized Caraboo's portrait in the Bristol Journal and identified her as Mary Baker. Faced with overwhelming evidence, Mary confessed to the hoax.
Surprisingly, Mrs. Worrall took pity on her and paid for her passage to Philadelphia, where Mary briefly performed her Princess persona on stage before returning quietly to England later in life.