Men's Journal

Photo credit: Courtesy Chris Matthews

For decades, newsman Chris Matthews has traveled to the tiny African kingdom of Swaziland, where once locally extinct species are now flourishing.

By Chris Matthews

Call me Phakama Dube. That’s my Swazi name, bestowed on me 40 years ago as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in the beautiful African kingdom of Swaziland. The name means “Jump up! Zebra” — appropriate, as my most vivid encounter with Swazi wildlife involved a deadly black mamba that left me jumpy, to say the least.

I was driving my British-made Ford Escort through the Grand Valley, an arid stretch of lowveld in the country’s southern district. It was late in the afternoon, so hot you could see the heat waves rising up from the dirt road.

Sweating and numbed by the heat, I barely noticed a black line across half of the roadway ahead. Suddenly I could see it was alive, heading at a sharp angle toward me. Before I could change course, the snake was at my open window, its full length springing up and in at me!

The reason I tell this story (and will again, no doubt many times, before I end up where that black mamba clearly wanted to send me) is that at that exact moment of sheer terror, I was as sure as I have been of anything in my life that the black mamba was twisting around in the backseat of my Escort, ready to strike.

Of course, the mamba wasn’t there at all. In my panic I flinched, jerking the wheel to the left and skidding to a stop. My friend Gary Rowse, who saw the whole comical scene from the car behind me, assured me my car had blown the mamba back on its tail. That was my unceremonious introduction to the wildlife of Swaziland, a tiny, mountainous country tucked between Mozambique and South Africa, and I’ve been devoted ever since.

I had never heard of the place before being assigned there in the summer of 1968. If anyone had heard anything about Swaziland then, it most likely involved its head of state, King Sobhuza II, the “world’s longest-reigning monarch,” and his 70 wives. But I would soon learn something often overlooked about King Sobhuza, who ruled from 1921 to 1982: He was passionately dedicated to guarding his country’s wildlife heritage.

Wildlife plays a vital role in Swazi culture and ceremony, from the many clans named after animals (Mamba is a common family name) to the royal family itself: The king’s title is Ngwenyama, or “great lion,” while the queen is Ndlovukazi, or “great elephant.” Sadly, by the early 1960s both elephant and lion — along with most of the big game that once roamed Swaziland — had been hunted to extinction. One district official poignantly told us that he feared his people would soon only be able to show visitors pictures of the animals that had once been such an integral part of their lives.

Our small group of Peace Corps volunteers arrived shortly after the kingdom regained independence from the British.

I was given the title of trade development adviser for the Shiselweni district, charged by the Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Mines with the serious responsibility of “developing the district economically.” I spent the next two years crisscrossing the country on a Suzuki 120 motorbike, teaching business to local Swazi merchants, organizing week-long business schools, and eventually putting together a national industrial exhibition visited by King Sobhuza himself. I admit, in my more wistful hours I saw myself as a bourgeois Che Guevara, selling free enterprise to Africa rather than revolution. I was lucky to come to know Africa at a time of uhuru, of rising national hope, but as an American, I was also savoring the soft, fading afterglow of British empire. It was a time when a young man could hitchhike up through East Africa to Kilimanjaro and back through Victoria Falls in the night, have breakfast in sidewalk cafes and bask in the sun of the Costa del Sol, and still catch bullfights in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

As I drove that motorbike around rural Swaziland, I never ceased to be amazed by what a spectacular country it is, from its steeply mountainous highveld (which gave the country the nickname “the Switzerland of Africa”) to a lowveld of dry bushland that reminded me of an old Tarzan movie. It was on one of these roaming drives that I first explored the country’s wildlife sanctuaries. My pal John Catanese and I somehow convinced the ranger at the gate to let us in. But when we found ourselves staring down the horn of a rhino, we made a desperate U-turn. There are reasons, we discovered, why game parks and motorbikes don’t mix.

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I returned to Swaziland in 1982 for King Sobhuza’s funeral, and a year later brought my wife, Kathleen, then a TV news anchor, to see this distant land that had become such a part of me. What impressed me most was how well Swaziland’s wildlife had recovered. Some devastated species were actually flourishing. Much of the credit for the stunning turnaround goes to King Mswati III. Although rightfully criticized for prohibiting political dissent and long ignoring the scourge of AIDS, he has carried on his predecessor’s strong dedication to guarding his country’s wildlife heritage. But even more credit, I later learned, is due to a man named Ted Reilly.

I first met Reilly on a 1994 trip to cover the election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. To get footage of the “real Africa,” I went to Hlane, Swaziland’s second game park, and walked into Reilly’s base camp — where we stood face-to-face with dozens of white-rhinoceros skulls, the ghastly results of the Rhino War of 1988–1992 that served as Reilly’s justification for equipping his park rangers with semiautomatic rifles.

Reilly, still a powerful barrel of a man today at 71, has spent a lifetime fighting the poachers and corruption that are the relentless enemies of Africa’s wildlife. His father, Mickey, came to southern Africa to fight in the Boer War at the turn of the last century; as Ted puts it, he then “walked over the mountains into Swaziland possessing only the clothes he was wearing.” Mickey Reilly mined tin in Mlilwane, eventually buying the land around it for farming — land filled with wildlife, including elephant and lion. But by the 1960s, the herds were gone. Recognizing that drastic action was necessary, Ted converted the family farm into Mlilwane game preserve, restoring habitats, begging animals from the king’s private hunting stock, and bringing back 22 animal species that had become locally extinct. Seeing this success, King Sobhuza asked Reilly to establish Hlane game park in 1967, and a third, Mkhaya, in 1979.

But the true turning point was the Rhino War, when poachers killed as many as three endangered rhinos per day. As in other African countries, arrests were undercut by corrupt officials who let poachers get off with light or no sentences. With no deterrent, law enforcement by the rangers became futile, and the rhinoceros was nearly wiped out.

Then the king stepped in. “What will the world think of Swaziland,” he asked, “if we can’t protect our rangers for doing their national duty and saving Swaziland’s rhinos?” Thanks to King Mswati, his country today has the best antipoaching legislation in the world: You don’t get bail or even a fine — if caught, you get sent to prison for a long stretch. As a sign at Mkhaya spells out: “Be warned: Swaziland game laws have teeth. Wildlife trade is a non-bailable offense resulting in 5–15 years in jail without the option of a fine.”

The Rhino War came to an abrupt end. Since December 1992, not a single rhino has been poached in Swaziland. Today, Big Game Parks of Swaziland, reporting directly to the king, manages game reserves with a focus on the Big Five (elephant, lion, rhino, leopard, and Cape buffalo). This ends up protecting wide habitats — Mlilwane alone boasts wildebeest, zebra, blesbok, impala, warthog, oribi, grey rhebok, suni, blue duiker, and roan antelope. Swaziland itself has 120 mammal species, in excess of 500 bird species, at least 40 amphibian species, and more than 100 species of reptiles, including — I know from experience — the black mamba.

As someone who fell in love with Swaziland and has returned to share its beauty with my family, I admire the tireless work of men like Ted Reilly, who had the foresight to protect the land for future generations before it’s too late. Reilly, for his part, gives all the credit to King Mswati: “If it were not for the support of the king, whose personal commitments to nature conservation are unmatched by any other head of state, Swaziland would have no game left to protect, and most tourists would simply pass Swaziland by.”

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See Swaziland

What To Do: Swaziland’s elevation range makes for diverse ecosystems, with 2,600 species of flowering plant. Although it doesn’t have the rhino, lion, or elephant of other parks, Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary is the best bet for a short trip, with a wide variety of wildlife (giraffe, zebra, crocodile, hippo, etc.) in 17 square miles near the capital of Mbabane. See more remote areas of the park by booking a guided overnight mountain-bike or horseback trip (from $138; biggameparks.org).

Where To Stay: Matthews’s favorite Swazi hotel is the Ematjeni Guesthouse. Minutes from Mlilwane, it offers five bedrooms with breathtaking views of Sibebe Rock, the largest granite outcrop on Earth ($70 to $110; ematjeniswaziland.com).

Safety: Swaziland is a very friendly country, with little crime, malaria, or animal attacks. But the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic here cannot be overstated: More than one in three Swazis are HIV-positive, and life expectancy has plunged below 32 years.

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This article originally appeared in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of Men’s Journal.

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