The _Independence Belge_ gives an account of Frau Pfeiffer, a woman who left Vienna several years ago to travel alone in the most distant and unfrequented parts of the world. After visiting Palestine and Egypt, Scandinavia and Iceland, she landed in Brazil, penetrated the primitive forests, and lived among the natives; from Valparaiso she traversed the Pacific to Otaheite, thence to China, Singapore, Ceylon, Hindostan, to the caves of Adjunta and Ellora to Bombay, whence she sailed up the Tigris, to Bagdad, and then entered upon the arduous journey to Babylon, Nineveh, and into Kurdistan; and passing to the Caucasus, she embarked for Constantinople, visiting Greece in her way home to Germany. She is now in London, visiting the Great Exposition.
FERDINAND HILLER, Superintendent of the Cologne Musical Academy, and a contemporary and friend of Mendelssohn, whom, in the beginning, it was supposed he would surpass as a composer, has been recently in Paris, renewing his old experiences. He saw there most of the famous literary and artistic notabilities, and gossips pleasantly about them in the _feuilleton_ of a German journal. He saw Henry Heine, whose body is almost dead, but whose mind is as vigorous as ever. Hiller says that Heine chatted with him about God and himself, of the King of Prussia, and of Hiller--of the Frankfort Parliament and his own songs. Heine's features, he says, are interesting, and even more beautiful than they were formerly. The fallen cheeks leave the noble oval of the head and the delicately chiselled nose mournfully apparent. The eyes are closed. He can only see with the left, by elevating the lid with his finger. He wears a close-trimmed beard, and his hair is as brown and luxuriant as ever. The slim white hand is ideally beautiful. It belongs, according to the doctrine of Carns, to the class of the purely psychological. Heine had just written a song for a German composer; and that no poet can sing more sweetly for music, the many of his verses which Schubert has "married to immortal" tune sufficiently indicate. Mendelssohn also composed the most dreamily delicate music to Heine's "Moonlight on the Ganges."
Ingres, the painter, now seventy years old, the pride and model of the severe classicists of the French school, is a comely old man, with rich dark hair, luminous eye, and smooth brow. He is still light and active in movement, and a genial serenity broods over his whole character and manner. His love of music is no less enthusiastic than that of a lover for his mistress. The great German composers are great gods to Ingres. The remembrance of a beautiful sonata fills his eyes with tears. Ingres has recently finished a portrait, which is not inferior to any thing he has ever done.