So anxious were the merchants to avoid arriving at any town of importance, where there would be an Aztec commander and garrison, until they received an answer from Tezcuco, that they traveled by very slow stages, camping in small villages where they could obtain water and supplies. Roger asked many questions of them as to the country, and learned that the hot and arid soil they were now crossing extended only about one-third of the distance to be traversed. Then that they would pass over a range of lofty mountains, offering great difficulties to travel, that the cold was extreme, and that snow lay almost continuously upon the highest summits. After crossing this range they would journey across a rich country, and descend at last into a most lovely and fertile valley, in which lay the lake, upon which the capitals of the two countries were situated. The country they were now traversing varied considerably. In some places it consisted of parched and sandy plains, almost free of vegetation. In others, where the rains were less able to drain quickly away, were districts of extraordinary fertility. Here grew the cocoa, vanilla, indigo and aromatic shrubs innumerable, forming thick and tangled jungles, impervious to the foot of man. Flowers of gorgeous colors bordered these groves, and lofty trees of foliage, altogether strange to Roger, reared their heads above them. The lad was delighted with the extraordinary richness of color, and the variety of the foliage, but he would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the intense heat of the sun, and the closeness of the air. They crossed several large streams. They cut down the great rushes which bordered them and, tying these together in bundles, formed rafts, upon which four or five at a time were ferried over. Roger learned that the principal road from the coast ran from Cempoalla, a large town near the sea, but that this lay a long distance to the north, and that the route they were traveling ran nearly due west to Tepeaca, and thence northwest to Pueblo, after which the towns lay thickly, all the way to the lake. As far as Roger could learn the distance, from the coast which they had lately been following to Mexico, was by this route about three hundred miles.