koppien.

1848 R. Gray Jrnl. 14 Nov. (1849) 76 Large dreary plains interrupted by rocky koppies, abounding with the springbok and the gnu.

1850 N. J. Merriman Cape Jrnls. (1957) 136 This will account for our retiring behind a koppie to pitch our tent.

1853 Edinb. New Philos. Jrnl. 55 79 The bush..covers over all inequalities of ground..and makes almost every kloof and koppie exactly resemble each other.

1881 Contemp. Rev. Feb. 226 The insurgents strongly posted in a rocky ‘koppie’.

1883 O. Schreiner Story Afr. Farm (1890) viii. 216 There at the foot of the ‘kopje’ goes a Kaffir.

1884 E. P. Mathers Glimpse of Gold Fields 143 He was prospecting about and tried the quartz at the bottom of the koppie... The koppie dips into a gully on each side of it.

1899 Athenæum 30 Sept. 450/1 The gallant deeds of the kopje and the karroo.

1926 O. Schreiner From Man to Man viii. 290 You will creep on hands and knees over rough koppies.

1957 Times 19 Nov. 12/7 In the course of my afternoon walk over the koppies one day I came upon two of my pupils engaged in a strange game.

1966 E. Palmer Plains of Camdeboo v. 74 The low ridge of koppies overlooking the gap.

1971 Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg) 27 Mar. (Home Owner) 9/2 It is a hilly area and there are the Melville koppies to add something extra to the area.

1971 World Archaeol. 3 182 With few exceptions, however, smelting sites are not found on the koppies themselves.

1886 G. A. Farini Through Kalahari Desert ii. 21 The wily Jew was a ‘partner’ in a ‘company’ of ten ‘Koppje wallopers’.

1897 H. Raymond B. I. Barnato i. 14 The slang camp term..for this [sc. diamond-buyer] was ‘kopje wallopper’, derived from the circumstance that in the earliest days the diamonds were obtained from a number of kopjes or small hills in the neighbourhood of the camp, and the dealers travelled on foot from one to the other purchasing the finds as they were turned out at the sorting tables.

1947 Cape Argus 20 Dec. 2/5 A ‘koppie walloper’ was a diamond buyer who went from claim to claim buying stones. The name was used in Kimberley in the early days.

1949 K. L. Simms Sun-drenched Veld viii. 70 Profits dwindled quickly, especially as native workmen stole many diamonds, which they sold to unscrupulous ‘kopje wallopers’ who made enormous profits without having done any hard work.

1955 E. Rosenthal in Saron & Hotz Jews in S. Afr. vi. 114 A ‘koppie-walloper’, that is one who went from claim to claim buying diamonds as the diggers produced them.

1967 E. M. Slatter My Leaves are Green 38 Now don't sell it to any of these kopje-wallopers.