EFFECT OF BAOBAB LEAVES. 
327 
go out of doors. They lie all day in their huts beside a 
great fire, and sometimes make coussabes to amuse them- 
selves. When any circumstance obliges them to go out, 
they wear a kind of clogs with wooden soles two inches and 
a half thick, which keep their feet dry. The women pur- 
sue their occupations, going out to procure wood and water 
without any regard to the state of the weather. They 
never wear any covering on their feet whether the ground be 
wet or dry. 
I intended to set out about the end of August ; but at 
that time another sore much larger than the first broke out 
on the same foot, I suffered considerable pain, and my 
foot was so swelled that I could not walk. I begged the 
old negress to procure me some baobab leaves. She boiled 
them, and I made them into a poultice which I applied to 
my foot. This allayed the inflammation, and in the course 
of two days I found myself better. Having no rags for dress- 
ing the sore, I was obliged to use for that purpose pieces 
of the cotton which formed my turban. The old negress 
did not approve of this : she alleged that it would be better 
to dispense with the poultices than to destroy such a beau- 
tiful piece of cloth. The baobab leaves soon reduced the 
swelling of my foot ; but the sore still continued as large as 
ever, being twice the size of a six-franc piece. I dressed it 
with lint which I had already used, and though I washed 
it, it was not very clean and did me no good. My host, 
who sympathised in my misfortune, sent one of his slaves 
to procure a root, which I recognized as having a caustic 
quality. He boiled it in water until it became tolerably 
soft, and then bruised a piece with a stone, and made a sort 
of salve of it. The first day he attended me himself : after 
washing the wound with the water of the decoction, he 
spread upon it some of the unctuous paste produced by the 
root, and then, instead of rag, he bound over it a leaf hav- 
ing a strong aromatic smell. On the following days, the 
