Owen Rowe O'Neil: "Adventures in Swaziland"

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OWEN ROWE O'NEIL
Adventures in Swaziland
Thrilling Lecture

Redpath



DR. OWEN ROWE O'NEIL
In his thrilling African lecture
ADVENTURES IN SWAZILAND
OWEN ROWE O'NEIL tells a story of adventures in Swaziland that for imaginative quality and vivid power rivals anything out of the Arabian Nights.  His is a true story, and it reads like a fairy tale.  The son of Slick Dick O'Neil, former finance minister in the cabinet of the late Oom Paul Kruger, Owen O'Neil grew up in the heart of South Africa.  His grandfather came originally from Ireland.  The O'Neils helped to found the Orange Free State and as pioneers survived the gruelling hardships of those trying days and the bloody onslaughts of the savage tribes of South African.  Owen O'Neil's nurse was a Mapor woman, and his playmates were the primitive little Kaffir boys.

He grew up in close proximity to the savage Swazis, a nation of 300,000 people who, under the leadership of old King Buno, were a constant menace to the surrounding Boer villages.  At each new moon Oom Paul paid Buno 2,000 pounds, or its equivalent in gin, to keep the peace, and young O'Neil was, at the age of nine, permitted to accompany his uncle, the only white man allowed in Swazi territory, on the hazardous mission of visiting King Buno and paying the tribute.  His accounts of the incredible cruelty and brutality of this savage emperor—the wierd rites and ceremonies of the feast prepared in honor of the visitors—Buno's ghastly shooting party—the dramatic and epic wrestling match which always took place between Buno and O'Neil's uncle—are high lights of the thrilling and fascinating story of O'Neil's first trip into Swaziland.

King Buno died of a snake-bite, and his sightless mother, over 100 years old, ruled over the Swazis until the crown prince Sebuza came of age.  Meanwhile Owen O'Neil had grown to manhood, been educated at Edinburgh University and Harvard and had returned to practise medicine among his own people in Africa.  He always kept in touch with the Swazis, however, visiting them each year.  In 1918, when he heard of the approaching coronation of the crown prince, he determined to be present at the ceremony.  How the old queen refused to give up her throne, how a civil war was precipitated, how the author and a companion became the only white men ever initiated into the Swazi tribe and how Sebuza won a great victory and assumed his rightful kingship over Swaziland are all vividly told in O'Neil's picturesque lecture, Adventures in Swaziland.



We regard Doctor O'Neil as one of our most valuable lecturers.  His simple, unassuming style is extremely fascinating, and he has a first-hand knowledge of the subjects on which he speaks so entertainingly.

ERNEST E. CRANDAL, Director of Lectures,
New York Board of Education.

From the outset one is struck by the simple vigor of the speaker's style.  Not one of the twenty-five hundred men in the audience left during the talk.  A thrilling story skillfully told.

FRANK M. FALLON, Chairman Entertainment Committee,
B. P. O. E. Convention, New York.