Civilization claims to introduce the elements of peace, happiness, and prosperity into the structure of society, and to transform the sword and the spear into the harmless implements of husbandry; yet with a swifter pace the engines of war increase, man thirsts as fiercely for the blood of his fellow-man, and the dormant spirit of destruction is as ready to illume the torch, as in the reckless times of past history. Even in this enlightened age we are constantly reminded of the truth and force of the remark of Hannibal: "No great state can long remain at rest. If it has no enemies abroad, it finds them at home; as overgrown bodies seem safe from external injuries, but suffer grievous inconveniences from their own strength." The motives of self-aggrandizement by force of arms appear to be innate in human nature. We see men maintaining monstrous ideas. We see great armies singularly swayed by single minds, in defiance of truth and reason. The soldiers of Catiline fought to the last gasp, and perished to a man, embracing the eagle of Marius--"Marius, who sprang from the dust the expiring Gracchi flung towards heaven," and who first dared attack the aristocratic nobility, and defend the down-trodden rights of the oppressed plebeian. There are mysterious laws, which seem to regulate the expansion and the decay of the human families. There are unseen forces which now and then impel vicious men to their own destruction. X. ANDERSONVILLE--a name which has been stamped so deeply by cruelty into the pages of American history--is one of those miserable little hamlets, of a score of scattered and dilapidated farm-houses, which relieve the monotony of the wide and dreary level of sand plains, which, covered with immense forests, interspersed with fens, marshes, corn and cotton fields, stretch away, in unbroken surface, from Macon down to the Florida shores. The plantations, which were tilled by slave labor, are almost concealed in the recesses of the forests, so thickly wooded is the country. Here and there only, where the savannas are of unusual fertility, do the cleared lands give a wide and extended view of the landscape, but the primeval pines everywhere hide the distant horizon. [Illustration: J. H. Bufford's lith. Boston, Mass.] The song of the laborer rarely disturbs the silence, which is oppressive. Song is the impulsive outburst of a heart filled with joy and hope. The slave has neither. His voice is the cry of anguish, of a soul burdened and crushed, and is more like the moan of the winds than the accents of civilized man. The physical aspect of the white inhabitant indicates the local impressions and inspirations--listless and apathetic in look, lank and haggard in form. There are countries, there are even limited localities, where the moral and mental faculties expand in accordance with external impressions. The laws of beauty and deformity are regulated by the condition and circumstances of the outward world to a remarkable degree.