In the course of the journey Robert visited many of the districts reported to be rich in minerals, but he met with few traces except of copper, iron, and coal, with occasional indications of gold and silver. He found the people ready to furnish information, which, however, when tested, usually proved worthless. A guide, whom he employed for weeks, kept him buoyed up with the hope of finding richer mining places than he had yet seen; but when he professed to be able to show him mines of "brass, steel, alcohol, and pinchbeck," Stephenson discovered him to be an incorrigible rogue, and immediately dismissed him. At length our traveler reached Bogotá, and after an interview with Mr. Illingworth, the commercial manager of the Mining Company, he proceeded to Honda, crossed the Magdalena, and shortly after reached the site of his intended operations on the eastern slope of the Andes. Mr. Stephenson used afterward to speak in glowing terms of this his first mule-journey in South America. Every thing was entirely new to him. The variety and beauty of the indigenous plants, the luxurious tropical vegetation, the appearance, manners, and dress of the people, and the mode of traveling, were altogether different from every thing he had before seen. His own traveling garb also must have been strange even to himself. "My hat," he says, "was of plaited grass, with a crown nine inches in height, surrounded by a brim of six inches; a white cotton suit; and a _ruana_ of blue and crimson plaid, with a hole in the centre for the head to pass through. This cloak is admirably adapted for the purpose, amply covering the rider and mule, and at night answering the purpose of a blanket in the net-hammock, which is made from the fibres of the aloe, and which every traveler carries before him on his mule, and suspends to the trees or in houses, as occasion may require." The part of the journey which seems to have made the most lasting impression on his mind was that between Bogotá and the mining district in the neighborhood of Mariquita. As he ascended the slopes of the mountain range, and reached the first step of the table-land, he was struck beyond expression with the noble view of the valley of Magdalena behind him, so vast that he failed in attempting to define the point at which the course of the river blended with the horizon. Like all travelers in the district, he noted the remarkable changes of climate and vegetation as he rose from the burning plains toward the fresh breath of the mountains. From an atmosphere as hot as that of an oven he passed into delicious cool air, until, in his onward and upward journey, a still more temperate region was reached, the very perfection of climate. Before him rose the majestic Cordilleras, forming a rampart against the western sky, and at certain times of the day looking black, sharp, and even at their summit almost like a wall.