famous for his theories on natural selection along with Charles Darwin. When Wallace departed, Helms employed Wallace's assistant Charles Allen with the BCL. Later in life Helms encountered financial difficulties, and returned to Sarawak in the early 1890s for several years to prospect. Helms' bungalow "Aneberg" on Bukit Mata in Kuching remained as the BCL manager's house for many years after Helms' departure. During the World War II Japanese occupation it was used as a brothel for Japanese officers, and was destroyed after the war. China, Japan, and California (1872) China and Japan On his return to England from Sarawak, Helms traveled from Kuching to Singapore, Saigon, Hong-Kong, and Shanghai, where he marveled at the changes over the last two decades; and then on to Nagasaki, Japan, arriving on June 28, 1872. Helms spent a month touring Japan, including Nagasaki, Kobe, Hyōgo, Osaka, Kyoto, Arima, Jeddo (now Tokyo), Yokohama, and Enoshima Island. In Osaka he obtained special permission to travel to the Kyoto Arts and Manufactures Exhibition, a rare opportunity since Kyoto had previously been restricted for foreigners He traveled by land and sea to the different cities, traversing portions of the Tōkaidō road, and visited several Japanese temples and shrines in Kyoto and Jeddo. In his book Pioneering in the Far East, Helms extensively described the Japanese culture, gardens, religion, architecture and art from his European viewpoint, and noted the extensive change occurring as they adapted to foreign influence, often commenting prophetically: Like, probably, all travelers in Japan, I had been delighted with the country, but astonished at the rapidity with which the ruling classes of this old and exclusive empire had divested themselves of their old ways and habits, and the docility with which the people submitted to it.... I did not then believe in the undisturbed progress of the new state of things; but, happily, time is rolling on, and the Japanese are still progressing and apparently consolidating, a spectacle that cannot but affect their mighty neighbour China. California Revisited Helms departed from Yokohama on the Steamship Alaska on August 8, 1872, arriving in San Francisco on August 31. He was amazed at the contrast in technology and comfort from his previous journey in 1849, and found San Francisco almost unrecognizable. Helms' primary purpose was to observe quicksilver mines in California (to assist in resolving problems being encountered processing the ore at his Tegora mine in Sarawak)