“I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and did not raise my head until I was fairly in the street. When I did so, it flashed upon me that I was in England; the evening sunlight lit up English houses, English faces, an English conformation of street – as it were, an English atmosphere blew against my face”.
(RLS, “Cockermouth and Keswick, A Fragment”, in Essays of Travel [London: Chatto and Windus, 1905], p. 94)
RLS was in the Lake District, in Cockermouth and Keswick, in 1871. You can read about his impressions of the area in “Cockermouth and Keswick, A Fragment” (1896), which is reprinted in Essays of Travel (1905).
While touring the area, Stevenson met with a number of interesting characters – an Irish beggar and her child, a tall proselytizing man, and a manager of a London theatre. He also flirted with three young ladies and went rafting.