/* XXX From here until type is allocated, "return NULL" leaks bases! */

Sure looks like it to me! <wink>

When I run the leak2.py script I posted to python-dev, I only see
three reference leaks in all of test_descr.  When I run
test_descr.test_main, I still see 46 leaks.  This clearly demands
posting a yelp to python-dev :-)

This certainly should be applied to release23-maint, and in all
likelyhood release22-maint as well.