'If I talk I shall wake up; and besides, I can't understand what he says.' No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in complete silence that they followed the Captain up the marble steps and through the streets of the town.

There were streets and shops and houses and markets.
'It's just like Babylon,' whispered Jane, 'only everything's perfectly different.' 'It's a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought up--to be kind to strangers,' Anthea whispered to Cyril.
'Yes,' he said, 'no deepest dungeons here.' There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were handcarts and low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and porters carrying packets on their heads, and a good many of the people were riding on what looked like elephants, only the great beasts were hairy, and they had not that mild expression we are accustomed to meet on the faces of the elephants at the Zoo.
'Mammoths!' murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a loose stone.
The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went along, but the Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew uncomfortably thick by saying-- 'Children of the Sun God and their High Priest--come to bless the City.' And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that sounded like a suppressed cheer.
Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the bigger buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of steeples of burnished silver rising above them.
'Are all these houses real gold ?' asked Jane.
'The temples are covered with gold, of course,' answered the Captain, 'but the houses are only oricalchum.

It's not quite so expensive.' The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed way, repeating: 'Oricalchum--oricalchum.' 'Don't be frightened,' said Anthea; 'we can get home in a minute, just by holding up the charm.

Would you rather go back now?
We could easily come some other day without you.' 'Oh, no, no,' he pleaded fervently; 'let the dream go on.

Please, please do.' 'The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,' said the Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned gentleman; 'and we are yet very far from the Great Temple, where today the Kings make sacrifice.' He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure.