A few years ago I did a somewhat larger project, which aimed at providing a Perl scripting interface to some PDM (Product Data Management) system, which came with only a C/C++ API.

I got hooked on the 'saving implementation time' thing, and started doing it with SWIG. Problem was I wanted to implement a convenient, more perl-style UI than the original API did provide. In other words, the conversion wrappers had to do a bit more work than mapping simple data types. Well, to make it short, I wasn't able to figure out how to do this with SWIG, though I tried hard.

Ultimately, I ended up redoing the whole thing in XS. It wasn't that much more difficult, and the great advantage was that I essentially could do anything I wanted... So, if you should decide to go with SWIG (after having read the other responses), my advice would be to begin with wrapping the most complex function interface first (maybe after having acquainted yourself with a couple of preliminary easier exercises). This will minimize wasting time. (I had made the error to start with the simple things -- so I essentially did the project twice: 90% in SWIG, then once again in XS...)

Lastly, and somewhat less seriously: using XS would likely boost your ego with that warm and fuzzy feeling of having done it the way most 'real hackers' would do ;)