nearly noon before
They followed the course which old Waziri had described to Tarzan . For days they marched -- up one river , across a low divide ; down another river ; up a third , until at the end of the twenty-fifth day they camped upon a mountainside , from the summit of which they hoped to catch their first view of the marvelous city of treasure . Early the next morning they were climbing the almost perpendicular crags which formed the last , but greatest , natural barrier between them and their destination . It was nearly noon before Tarzan , who headed the thin line of climbing warriors , scrambled over the top of the last cliff and stood upon the little flat table-land of the mountaintop . On either hand towered mighty peaks thousands of feet higher than the pass through which they were entering the forbidden valley . Behind him stretched the wooded valley across which they had marched for many days , and at the opposite side the low range which marked the boundary of their own country . But before him was the view that centered his attention .