A train is heading toward a small, rural station in Southern Africa. The area around the station is impoverished, as are the people who live there. In the station, the stationmaster, the venders, and the children prepare for the train's arrival.

The train, from the white, considerably more wealthy area of Rhodesia, approaches the station. A young white woman stretches out of the train's window to look at a carved lion that an old African man has to sell. The poor villagers flock to the windows of the train, selling items or begging for handouts from the other passengers. Children ask for pennies. Dogs and hens surround the dining car waiting for scraps. One girl throws out chocolates— "the hard kind, that no one liked"—but the hens get them before the dogs do.

The young woman decides the lion is too expensive: three shillings and...