Ludvig Verner Helms (April 14, 1825 – July 26, 1918) was an adventurer, merchant, emissary, and author associated with South-east Asia, especially the Borneo Company in Sarawak. As a manager for the Borneo Company for twenty years, he developed and expanded trade for Sarawak in the country's infancy. He traveled extensively and encountered several notable personalities including Mads Lange, the kings of Cambodia and Siam, the White Rajahs of Sarawak, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Brigham Young. Helms wrote and illustrated an account of his adventures in 1882 titled Pioneering in the Far East and Journeys to California in 1849 and to the White Sea in 1878, providing firsthand accounts of Bali, California, Cambodia, Thailand, Sarawak, Japan, the White Sea, and their leaders during periods of significant historical interest.
Early life Ludvig Verner Helms was born in Varde, Denmark, on April 14, 1825, the son of Rudolph Helms and his second wife Mathilde Augusta Fridsch. Rudolph Helms was an apoteker (pharmacist) in Varde. Ludvig was the thirteenth of sixteen children.
Southeast Asia (1847–1872) In 1846 Helms left for Bali, sailing via the Cape and Singapore. He spent the next 26 years in Southeast Asia working as a merchant or trader. During this period he would visit Bali, Cambodia, Siam, China, Japan, Australia, and California.
Bali Helms sailed from Hamburg, Germany, on the Brig Johanna Caesar on September 15, 1846, with the intention of finding and introducing himself to his fellow countryman Mads Lange, who was reputed to have established a successful merchant business on the island of Bali. He had never met or corresponded with Lange, but had letters of introduction. His ship stopped in Cape Town, South Africa, in November 1846, where he spent several weeks with friends, and then continued to Singapore on December 16, 1846, where he arrived on February 25, 1847.
In Singapore he was told the Bali natives were unfriendly and was advised against proceeding. However, he decided to continue, and found a ship that was willing to drop him off at Bali. He arrived in the middle of the night and, communicating only by repeating Lange's name, was led by natives to Lange's residence, where he was welcomed.
Helms spent the next two years working for Lange in his growing trade business near Kuta, which included rice, spices, and animal stock, as well as the importing of the Chinese kepeng, the currency used in Bali. His responsibilities included negotiating prices, and arranging and preparing cargo for shipment. While in Bali, he became well acquainted with the natives and their habits and religions, later extensively documenting them in his book Pioneering in the Far East. Along with Lange, Helms also met and occasionally interacted with the reigning rajahs of Bali, particularly Rajah Kassiman (Kesiman) of Badung.
While in Bali he witnessed a suttee, a Hindu practice in which a widow sacrifices herself into her deceased husband's funeral pyre. He vividly described the event in his book Pioneering in the Far East, including a sketch. He also collected paintings and carvings, along with Mads Lange. Later in life Helms and his family donated several pieces of artwork, including some carved statues, a case of cockspurs, and a painting, to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
Helms stayed in Bali with Lange until the conflicts with the Dutch and Balinese in the 1848 and 1849 Dutch Interventions caused trade to dwindle. He played a role as courier and escort for Lange's mediations between the Dutch and Balinese in June 1849, which resulted in peaceful settlement. Lange's Kuta business gradually declined due to Dutch blockades during the interventions, epidemics, warring between the Balinese rajahs, as well as the growing use of steamships which shifted trade to competing ports in northern Bali. Lange's business never recovered, and on June 21, 1849, Helms left to find other employment in Singapore. Helms returned to Bali only once in September 1858, when he stopped en route to Europe from Sarawak to visit Lange. He was saddened to find Lange had died a few years earlier.
California (1850) Helms returned to Singapore from Bali on July 8, 1849. From there he visited China for two months, including Canton and Hong Kong. While in Hongkong he noted the high level of anxiety of the European community due to the recent assassination of the Governor of Macao, and the growing excitement regarding the California gold rush. He returned to Singapore in September, and accepted a clerkship in the Singapore mercantile office of MacEwen and Company. After eight months, some business associates offered to send him to California with some trial shipments, and possibly open a career for him. His employers were willing to keep a place open for him, so he sailed for San Francisco in mid-June 1850 on the Danish brig Indianeren.
After an uneventful voyage across the Pacific of 67 days, he arrived in San Francisco, which was in the uproar of the California gold rush. He noted 784 large ships and several hundred coasters in the harbor, many deserted by their crews. Going ashore, he marveled at the variety of the people, the cost of lodging, the hastily built structures, and the day and night activities of the booming town. Lodging was scarce, and Helms considered himself lucky to be able to join a ramshackle "bachelor's hall" of 22 like-minded businessmen, some of whom would stay and become rich. While in San Francisco Helms witnessed one of the many San Francisco Fires; and visited the old Spanish church and mission at Dolores, abandoned at the time. He also found time to visit Flagstaff Hill (which no longer exists) overlooking the city, and create a watercolor sketch of the harbor.
Helms found he had arrived at an unfavorable time from a business perspective; the gold rush had peaked, and there was an excess of supplies. Helms saw a great future in California, but his business associates lost heavily and he was unable to convince them of the investment potential, so he made plans to return with the Indianeren after a few months. The captain found most of the crew had deserted, and they sailed short-handed in mid-September, 1850. Sickness broke out among the crew during the journey, and Helms himself had to act as helmsman for several days. However, they arrived safely in Hong Kong, and sailed on to Singapore, arriving December 22, where he resumed employment as a clerk.
Cambodia (1851) While working in Singapore for MacEwen and Company, Helms was offered a post in Sarawak working for the London firm of Messrs. R. & J. Henderson, who had obtained the lease for working the antimony mines in that country. However, he could not take the position for several months, and he accepted an offer from the Singapore firm Messrs. Almeida & Sons to go on a mission to Cambodia in an attempt to open commercial relations with that country by sending a ship loaded with merchandise.
Cambodia at the time was struggling as a tributary state of Siam and a vassal of Cochin-China, which had monopolized and repressed trade, resulting in strained relationships with the European countries trading in Singapore. The king of Cambodia, King Ang Duong, sent a representative, Constantino de Montiero, to Singapore to express his desire to be on friendly terms with the English and open commercial relations, and request assistance in suppressing piracy.
In February, 1851, accompanied by Montiero, Helms sailed on the brig Pantaloon for the Cambodian port of Kampot, the only port available, as the Cochin Chinese had closed the Mekong River to Cambodia. They were wary of pirates, since Kampot was suspected of harboring them, but none were encountered. In Kampot, he arranged for transportation inland to the capital city of Udong, which was to be on ox-drawn carts. The journey of nearly 200 miles took ten days over rough roads with limited water. He found Udong unpretentious for a capital city, with buildings of thatched bamboo and wood.
In Udong he successfully met with the king in an official ceremony, where he offered gifts and discussed prospects of trade, which seemed good. He later met with the king in his private apartments, where the king spoke more freely about his desire for his country to come under British protection, and for trade to resume on the Mekong river. The king asked Helms to plead his country's interests in Singapore, and also requested Helms to secure for him the necessary machinery for coining. Helms was offered a large elephant as a gift, which he gratefully declined.
After a week in Udong, Helms left for Kampot. The king provided elephants for the return journey, which was much more comfortable. Helms took with him a cargo of rice, pepper, raw silk, ivory, tortoiseshell, cardamom, gamboge, and stick-lac among other things, and also a petition from the king for British protection, which he later delivered. A large quantity of buffalo hides and horns had to be brought down by water and were intercepted by the Cochin Chinese on the Vĩnh Tế Canal.
He arrived back in Singapore in mid-June 1851. He fulfilled his promise to the king by publishing accounts of his journey in the Singapore Free Press and the Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia. The mission was successful from a commercial standpoint, starting a trade that gradually increased in the following years; however, he was disappointed that the British Government never acted on the king's requests. His accounts of the journey remain a rare first-hand account of King Ang Duong and Cambodia during his reign.
Siam (1851) While in Cambodia, Helms heard rumors that Rama III, the King of Siam, had died. King Rama had been unfriendly to European merchants, rebuffing a visit by Sir James Brooke in 1850, but his expected successor, Prince Mongkut, was thought to have a different outlook and might encourage European trade. After his return to Singapore from Cambodia, Helms was offered the opportunity (probably by Singapore merchant Messrs. Silva, Joseph, & Co.) to take a similar venture to Siam to confirm the king's death and see if new trade opportunities could be opened.
He accepted the offer and sailed for Siam on June 23, 1851, again on the brig Pantaloon. Alert for pirates, they stopped at Tringanu, Calantan, and Sangara trying to confirm King Rama III's death, finally obtaining it from the rajah of Sangara. On July 6, they reached the mouth of the Menam River in Siam.
Leaving his ship anchored off the coast, Helms proceeded by land to Paknam, where he awaited approval from the Siamese government to proceed to the Siamese capitol, Bangkok. It was quickly granted, and he proceeded upriver by small boat to Bangkok, arriving on July 10. He had letters of introduction to a Portuguese merchant in Bangkok, and was hospitably received; the next day he met with the Siamese foreign minister, who granted him concessions on foreign duties and allowed his ship to proceed up the river to Bangkok to trade. He was also informed that the new King Mongkut would grant him a formal audience.
The audience took place on July 26 in the king's palace, with all the Siamese nobility present. The king asked him his business, and approved his request for trade; the king also expressed his desire that the British Government send an ambassador to Siam, and that he wished to do all in his power to encourage European commerce. Helms presented him a letter of congratulations he had composed, and was provided a response with the royal seal attached.
Two days later Helms met with the king's half-brother, Prince Chuthamani, who had been appointed as "Second King" and who also desired to adopt European customs. The troops were reviewed in Helms' presence, and he was presented with a traditional gift of gold and silver flowers.