Her countenance surprisingly fascinating
If before suspected as an imposter, the sight of her removes all doubt.
Upon opening, the cobbler and his wife made quick note of the hands that had just knocked on the door to their cottage. Soft and clean, they belonged to a woman who had seemingly never put in a day’s hard labor. Her face was striking, set against a 5’2 figure clad wholly in black — from dress, to shawl, to the turban atop her head.
She spoke an unrecognizable mother tongue. She was lost, confused or both, and she carried on her person no identifiable information.
The cobbler’s wife insisted on shepherding the young woman to Almondsbury’s overseer of the poor, concerned the stranger might be a vagrant or spy. Two years after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the presence of enemy agents still loomed as a very real threat in such otherwise quiet villages. From here, she changed hands twice more. First stop was the home of the county magistrate, a learned world traveler who spoke a dozen languages.
None of them broke through.
Next was the local inn. Here the strange woman offered two hints. Pointing to a painting, she finally spoke a recognizable word. “Nanas.” Indonesia for “pineapple.” It was, no doubt, a clue — a familiar image from her homeland, and enough to convince those present that she had arrived at their doorstep from halfway across the world. The excitement of discovering a breadcrumb was, however, soon tempered by her strange behavior.
She would not drink from a glass she had not first washed herself, nor would she sleep in the beds offered, instead preferring the floor. The strange woman refused meat and all beverages besides water and tea. The magistrate grew convinced that this strange woman was, in fact, a vagrant and ordered she be tried accordingly. As further attempts to communicate came up frustratingly short, she eventually provided her name.
Caraboo.
Another breakthrough still arrived in the form of a Portuguese sailor whom she encountered during a brief imprisonment. Though hardly fluent, he was able to cobble together a harrowing life story – one which, much to the excitement of the crowd, played out like passages from Robinson Crusoe. Caraboo was born on the tiny island of Javasu in the Indian Ocean to a Malaysian mother and ethnically Chinese father, whose vaguely European complexion she had inherited.
Javasu had thus far remained untouched by Western conquest, owing to the long stretches of shallow waters surrounding the island that made it impossible for large ships to approach. In spite – or, more likely, because – of its isolation from the West, it was a prosperous nation. Natives fed on the flying fish that populated the surrounding waters, along with crops of rice and spices.
The people prayed to a powerful god, Alla Tallah, but the law of the land was a strong king. And that king was her father.
But Javasu’s natural barriers were not enough to keep out the ever-expanding world beyond its shores. Pirates landed on the island, taking the young woman hostage. A perilous journey ensued, before the resourceful princess escaped her captors, jumped overboard and swam across a body of water she’d later come to learn was the English Channel, ending up at the cobbler’s cottage in South Gloucestershire.
Believing themselves to be in the presence of royalty – however strange her customs might be – the magistrate and his wife happily opened their homes to the shipwrecked guest. Theirs was a palatial 16th century estate built around a 15th century tower, perfectly suited to serve as the temporary home of a proper princess. The couple quickly grew enchanted with the foreign woman’s strange ways. She strung her own bow and arrows, fenced and danced unknown dances. Rather scandalously, she had also begun swimming naked in the bodies of water surrounding the estate.
Caraboo’s celebrity grew in local circles. A member of the Royal Academy painted a picture of the woman in her native dress. She stands in sandals, while a white wrap sporting a trio of peacock feathers sits atop her head. After the image appeared in the paper, Dr. Wilkinson, an “amateur orientalist,” caught wind of the exotic figure.
On meeting her, he grew smitten, identifying her writings using a copy of Edmund Fry's Pantographia. He happily confirmed the veracity of her half-understood claims in a letter published in The Bath Chronicle.
“Her manners are extremely graceful, her countenance surprisingly fascinating,” he wrote. “Such has the general effect on all who behold her, that, if before suspected as an imposter, the sight of her removes all doubt.”
It was an article in The Bristol Journal, however, that brought Caraboo to the attention of Mrs. Neale, a local boarding house owner. She recognized a portrait of the woman, who had recently worked for her as a servant. A half-year prior, Mary Willcocks had invented her own languages by cobbling together borrowed Romani words and some of her own creations, while adopting fantastical dress to entertain the children who lived there.
Contacted by Neale, the magistrate’s wife woke Willcocks one morning and told the young woman they were headed into Bristol to have another portrait painted. It was here the boarding house owner confronted the fraud. Willcocks suddenly exhibited the ability to speak fluent English. After three months as an exotic princess from a strange land, she was once again a humble cobbler’s daughter.
The newspapers pounced on the story. This time, however, the romantic tale of a young princess was replaced by the indictment of a gullible village that had fallen prey to her charms.
The Royal Cornwall Gazette poked fun at Wilkinson’s credulousness in particular,
We are sorry that the humanity and hospitality of Mrs. Worrall should have been thus imposed upon; the motives of that lady, as well as Dr. Wilkinson were most benevolent; but as one of the Bristol papers observes – “Dr. W. is not the first of the Cognoscenti who have been puzzled by a young woman with ‘eyes and hair black, eye-brows finely arched, a pleasing colour in her cheeks, a sweet smile, and teeth beautifully white and regular.’”
Taking pity on the young woman, the magistrate’s wife put her on a boat to the United States. Willcocks once more adopted the role of Caraboo on stage in Philadelphia — though this time to little effect. On returning to England, the character also failed to move London crowds.
Carraboo was retired for good. Willcocks later married and spent her final years selling leeches to Bristol’s Infirmary Hospital.
“There was a kind of grim humor in the occupation which she subsequently followed,” The Brooklyn Eagle wrote, two years after he death in 1864, “that of an importer of leeches; but she conducted her operations with much judgement and ability, and carried her trade with credit to herself and satisfaction to her customers.”
Sources:
The mysterious Princess Caraboo https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-mysterious-princess-caraboo/
Clever Cons: Princess Caraboo https://blog.newspapers.com/clever-cons-princess-caraboo/
The Un-Discovered Islands by Malachy Tallack
Romantic Liars by D. Lee