Mandrake Linux 9: Why isn't bsddb working?

[Dfenestr8]

I started off trying to use bsddb with my standard mandrake 9 python 2.2.1
package. The shell reported back no such module. Strange, thinks I. I
thought it was standard in the package, it was when I was using Windows.

So I uninstalled Python, downloaded the latest python 2.3 and compiled it
from source.

Now when I try to import bsddb, I get this error......

>>> import bsddb
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/bsddb/__init__.py", line 40, in ?
    import _bsddb

What might I have done wrong, and/or what should I do to fix it?