ISLANDS ARE USUALLY discovered by those who leave their homes and sail in search of land and adventure. They are found by those who go looking. But on one occasion, it was the island that came looking for people, arriving in the shape of a mysterious woman in a black turban.
It was the evening of Thursday, 3rd April 1817, in the village of Almondsbury, near Bristol. On the doorstep of a cottage stood a woman of about twenty-five, who had just knocked on the door. In addition to her turban, she wore a black dress with a frill at the neck, and a red and black shawl around her shoulders. She had a pair of leather shoes and woollen socks, and had clean, soft hands, like those of someone unused to work. It seemed she was looking for a place to spend the night, but the words she spoke were not English. They were, in fact, entirely unrecognisable.
On the supposition that the woman might be a vagrant, or even a spy, she was taken first to the overseer of the poor and then to the house of Samuel Worral at Knole Park. Mr Worral was the local magistrate, and he also employed a servant who could speak several European languages. But the servant, when called to assist, was equally puzzled. He could make nothing of what the woman said. Without any papers or belongings, and without a language that could be understood, she was a blank person, a nobody. And had it not been for the intervention of Mr Worral’s wife, her fate would most likely have been prison or deportation. But for now, she was lucky.
In this woman, so far devoid of an identity, Elizabeth Worral saw a mystery she wanted to unravel, and over the coming days she began to piece together such clues as could be uncovered. These did not amount to much. The woman’s name, it seemed, was Caraboo. At least that was the word she used while pointing to herself. Images of China were met with recognition, as was furniture imported from that country (though she did not appear to be Chinese). Many of the woman’s habits, too, were rather odd. She seemed reluctant to sleep in a bed, preferring the floor; she drank only tea and water, and would not eat meat; she recited prayers with one hand covering her eyes. Beyond that, though, little could be learned.
To begin with, there were those who doubted that Caraboo was as foreign as she seemed. The incongruence between her European features and her exotic language and behaviour were a particular source of puzzlement. So too was her sudden appearance in the village. But as the search for answers continued, and as well-travelled and knowledgable guests were invited to interrogate the woman, there was, finally, a breakthrough. A Portuguese man called Manuel Eynesso came to meet Caraboo. He had spent time in the Far East, and as a consequence was able to identify her speech as a mixture of Sumatran dialects. Though he was not fluent in the language, Eynesso gave a basic translation of her story. She was, he said, a woman of some importance – a princess, perhaps – who had been kidnapped from her home on the island of Javasu in the East Indies, then transported to England against her will. Furnished with this information, another man was found who had more intimate knowledge of the region from which she had come. He conversed with Caraboo on several occasions, then provided the Worrals with a detailed description of her background.
According to this account, Caraboo’s mother was from Malaysia and her father, though white in complexion, was from China. He was a powerful man, to whom the people of Javasu would kneel in deference. Of the island itself she explained that the waters around it were very shallow, so that large vessels were unable to approach. This, presumably, was the reason it was thus far unknown in the West. Of the goods produced there, she named cassia, rice and white pepper. The seas surrounding Javasu, she said, were home to flying fish.
Thereafter, the Worrals’ guest was made especially welcome at Knole Park. She was, after all, an Oriental princess. And with that role now established, Caraboo delighted her hosts and their numerous visitors with strange behaviour. She made bows and arrows, and could fence with great skill; she wore feathers in her hair and played a tambourine; she danced outlandishly and swam naked. Her fame spread. A portrait was painted, showing her in a white turban and flowing, golden gown. Newspapers published the story, together with the picture. And that was her undoing.
Princess Caraboo is often described as a hoaxer and a fraud, but that is not entirely fair. Though she was recognised in the newspaper by a former landlady, and thereafter exposed as Mary Willcocks, from Witheridge in Devon, the identity she had assumed was not of her own making; it was bestowed upon her. Mary was a poor and restless woman. She had been forced to give up a child the previous year, and the child had then died. She had spent time travelling with Romani travellers, from whom she learned some of her vocabulary. And though clearly intelligent, she was also undoubtedly disturbed. Her refusal to speak English was, in part, a kind of withdrawal from the world. She did not seek fame, nor did she cheat the Worrals out of money or possessions. She came to them against her will and tried more than once to escape.
Mary’s story, in virtually every detail, was provided by others – by Manuel Eynesso and by the second man (who was unnamed in contemporary accounts). Both men most likely assumed that Mary was indeed a foreigner, and that she would therefore be unable to comprehend or contradict their inventions. Elizabeth Worral longed for an exotic solution to the mystery of Caraboo, and that’s precisely what they gave her. Mary, in turn, just played up to the role. She listened in to the words of those who thought she could not understand, and she adjusted her behaviour accordingly. She found herself in the midst of a society obsessed with the Oriental, and she reflected that obsession back at them. She became a kind of mirror.
Following the embarrassing revelation of her real identity, Mary was sent to the United States in the company of three chaperones chosen by Mrs Worral. She was greeted there as a celebrity. Seven years later she returned to England and tried, for a time, to live off her now fading fame. But it didn’t last. She began to wander again, in Spain and in France, before marrying and finally settling in Bristol. She died there, aged 75, in 1864, and is buried in the city in an unmarked grave. Javasu was never heard of again.