In 1874 Henryk Sienkiewicz was briefly engaged to Maria Keller, and traveled abroad to Brussels and Paris. Soon after he returned, his fiancée's parents cancelled the engagement. In 1876 Sienkiewicz went to the United States with Helena Modrzejewska (soon to become famous in the U.S. as actress Helena Modjeska) and her husband. He traveled via London to New York and then on to San Francisco, staying for some time in California. His travels were financed by Gazeta Polska (The Polish Gazette) in exchange for a series of travel essays: Sienkiewicz wrote Listy z podróży (Letters from a Journey) and Listy Litwosa z Podróży (Litwos' Letters from a Journey), which were published in The Polish Gazette in 1876-78 and republished as a book in 1880. Other articles by him also appeared in Przegląd Tygodniowy (The Weekly Review) and Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki (The Learned and Literary Guide), discussing the situation of American Polonia. He briefly lived in the town of Anaheim, later in Anaheim Landing (now Seal Beach, California). He hunted, visited Native American camps, traveled in the nearby mountains (the Santa Ana, Sierra Madre, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino Mountains), and visited the Mojave Desert, Yosemite Valley, and the silver mines at Virginia City, Nevada. On 20 August 1877 he witnessed Modjeska's U.S. theatrical debut at San Francisco's California Theatre, which he reviewed for The Polish Gazette; and on 8 September he published in the Daily Evening Post an article, translated into English for him by Modjeska, on Poland and Russia.