Flight after flight of broad marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood great images, twenty times as big as a man--images of men with wings like chain armour, and hawks' heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs.
And there were the statues of great kings.
Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains played, and the Queen's Guard in white and scarlet, and armour that shone like gold, stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; and a great body of them was massed by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood glittering like an impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun.
All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the Queen.

Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled.
And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd.
At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out of the basket and whispered-- 'I can't be bothered with queens.

I'll go home with this lady.

I'm sure she'll get me some sand if you ask her to.' 'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane.

The woman was giving some last instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane.
'Don't be a little muff,' said the Psammead quite fiercely.