In April 1817, a young woman wearing exotic clothes and speaking an utterly incomprehensible language wandered into the village of Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England. Local magistrate Samuel Worrall and his wife took her in, fascinated by her strange demeanor. Soon, a Portuguese sailor named Manuel Eynesso claimed he could translate her language.
According to his translation, she was Princess Caraboo from the far-off island of Javasu in the East Indies. She claimed to have been abducted by pirates, jumped overboard in the Bristol Channel, and swam ashore. For ten weeks, Princess Caraboo captivated British high society.
She demonstrated archery, fenced, swam nude, climbed trees, and prayed to a deity named Allah Tallah. Local elites showered her with gifts, fascinated by her exotic charm. However, the elaborate hoax unraveled when a local boardinghouse keeper named Mrs.
Neale recognized Caraboo's portrait in the newspaper. The princess was actually Mary Baker, a cobbler's daughter from Devon who had worked as a domestic servant. Possessing a vivid imagination and talent for invented gibberish, she had concocted the alter-ego to survive and find adventure.
Rather than punishing her severely, the amused community funded her passage to Philadelphia, where she briefly performed her story on stage before returning to England to sell medical leeches.