The sore on my foot, instead of healing, grew worse. The month of August continued stormy: the rain poured down day and night: the sky was cloudy and the air heavy and cool. At intervals an east wind blew and was followed by a small, cold rain. The sun but rarely appeared. My hut was exceedingly damp. The water filtered through the wall which was made of earth and very thin. I was in a continual vapour bath and frequently ill, owing to the insalubrity of the air and the inconvenience of my new dwelling, in which I could not kindle a fire on account of the intolerable smoke. Throughout all the interior of Africa, the negroes never make chimneys. They kindle their fires in the middle of their huts, and leave the smoke to find its way through the roofs, which are in consequence thickly lined with soot. During the rainy season, the Mandingoes scarcely ever go out of doors. They lie all day in their huts beside a great fire, and sometimes make coussabes to amuse themselves. 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 pursue 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 dressing 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 beautiful 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 having a strong aromatic smell. On the following days, the old negress dressed my foot morning and evening, and she often consoled me with the hope of a speedy cure.