SWAZILAND,

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2647, 29 June 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

SWAZILAND,

Notwithstanding the repeated requests of Umbanditie, the Swazie King, and of his people, the Home Government, fearing to give offence to the Boers, steadily refuso to declare a protectorate over the country. Consequently the laud is infested with Dutch and English speculators, holding titles, real or imaginary, to gold on grazing concessions, who quarrel among themselves, and bring evil on the natives. The king, indeed, has made great advances in civilisation. For instance, he sits upon a gin case instead ol on the ground, and gets drunk every day on sweet champagne. But neither the gin case nor the champagne seem to have modified his native brutality. Here is Mr Mather's account of a little domestic tragedy connected with Umbandine's own household:—" A beautiful young wife of tho king's had in some innocent way did not please him. Tho order was given to smell her out, and tho witch doctors do their horrible work. Executioners were told off, and they were sent out to the youag wife to tell her of her sentence. She dressed herself in her best, ornaments, and determined to appear before tho king to say 'good-bye.' She had been tho ruler's playmate and favourite sweetheart as a child, and she ventured to send a message to him asking permission to say • good-bye' to him. The king refused the request. Calmly preparing for death, the young woman disregarded the denial, and walked to where his 'majesty' was sitting, drinking champagne. She said to him, " King, I have come to say " Goodbye ; tell me why you arc killing me.' The king vouchsafed no answer, aud turned his face away, The poor woman proceeded to bid adieu to the other wives and girls of the monarch. They stood in a row, and as she walked down iu front of them she said, ' I am the first, but there will be more of you to come after me.' Without another word she quietly followed her executioners. They led her about three miles from the kraal, across the Tillan River, and there hanged her on a low thorn tree. The reim by which she was suspended being too long, her feet nearly touched the grouud, and strangulation was completed by beating the reim with sticks, the person of royalty being sacred to the common touch. Surely it is time that England interfered in the interests of all parties, and even at the ' expense of offending President Kruger, to put a stop to the ruin of Swaziland 1 and the occurrence of such horrors, of which the above quoted is only a sample. I But Her Majesty's Government appear 1 to think otherwise, '