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 The view from the kloof going down to the bay was so spectacular that
visitors came to marvel. One of the visitors at this time was Lady Lucie
Duff Gordon, the wife of Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. She was sent to the
Cape for eight months as treatment for her consumption, and sent
enthusiastic letters back home about what she saw. On April 15th 1862:
“We drove round the Kloof, between Table and Lion Mountain. The
road is cut on the side of Lion Mountain and overhangs the sea at great
height. Camp’s Bay, which lies on the further side of the ‘Lion’s Head,’ is
most lovely: never was sea so deeply blue, rocks so warmly brown or
sand and foam so glittering white; and down at the mountain foot the
bright green of the orange and pomegranate trees throws it all out in
greater relief.”
These trees grew in the Round House gardens. The view from the kloof
going down to the bay was so spectacular that the locals could watch the
boats on the bay as well as the bay itself. One naval event that attracted
crowds to Camps Bay long before the Cape to Rio races was the arrival of
the Alabama, an episode that passed into cultural history through the still
popular folksong Daar kom die Alabama.
The Alabama was an American Confederate raider which during the
American Civil War roamed the seas and sunk 57 Federal ships. She called
at Cape Town between 29 July and 5 August 1863 to replenish her coal
supplies and captured the American barque, Sea Bride, off the coast of Sea
Point.100 The beaches and mountainsides were crowded with hundreds of
excited sightseers to watch the three masted ship enter Table Bay Harbour
with her prize. “There was nothing but a sea of heads as far as the eye
would reach.”
 A journalist reported: “Crowds of people ran up the Lion’s Hill and to
Kloof Road. All the cabs were chartered... there was no cavilling about
fares, the cabs were taken, and...orders were given to drive as hard as
possible...as soon as the cab reached the crown of the hill, we set off at
breakneck pace down the road, on past the Round House until we came
near Brighton, and as we turned the corner there lay the Alabama within
fifty yards of the unfortunate Yankee ... Like a cat watching and playing
with a victimised mouse ... (Captain Semmes)... pounced upon her.” 102
The Alabama was sunk on 19 June 1864. The British Government was
blamed for not trying hard enough to stop the Alabama from sailing when
she was newly launched and after international arbitration had to pay the
American Government £3.5 million compensation!
Although Mrs Ross described Camps Bay as being like Brighton,
Brighton itself where they spotted the unfortunate Yankee was where
Brighton Court stands today, and was bought in 1864 by Henry Solomon
for development, the year after the road was improved. Solomon was the
promoter of the newly opened Green Point tramway and planned to erect
‘marine villas’ there. Unfortunately an examination showed that the road
would be too steep for the horse-drawn trams, and without public
transport only journalists chasing a scoop or tourists with their carriages
could get there. The idea was abandoned as were later plans for a Sea Point
railway which would extend to Camps Bay and for a rack railway over
Kloof Nek, and Brighton remained undeveloped.
Developers were beginning to cast a glance at the possibilities of the
Atlantic suburbs. Fashionable houses were springing up at Green Point.
Sea Point was a small village with open fields and pastures and until 1875
had only one shop. Bread was delivered daily in a donkey cart with a blind
driver. It only got a name in 1817 when Sea Point House was opened to
boarders,104 although Camps Bay had had a name since 1782.
For the entrepreneur, Camps Bay remained a place where waves of
enthusiasm for its development were fated to be dashed on the rocks of
practical considerations, and the bay continued to slumber in its relative
inaccessibility. Mrs Ross105 in her letter in 1861 was surprised it was so
deserted. Camps Bay
“It is curious how few people we meet on these charming heights.
Beyond a few Malays returning from a fishing excursion to the rocks in
Camp’s Bay, armed with rods and lines of a portentous length, you
seldom pass a soul.”
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