A kopje is an isolated hillock, often formed of giant and sometimes spectacularly balanced boulders, which rises out of the African veld. It's an Afrikaans word which is used right up into Tanzania and Kenya. Probably the nearest equivalent in Britain are the tors of Southwest England.
....many in the school estate - I think when we were there, that its grounds extended to some 4,000 acres, mostly untamed bush - and, from the top of 'our' kopje more could be seen disappearing into the distance.
The front veranda of our house looked out across its front garden to another kopje.
They weren't always inhospitable to man. We know this from the many superb rock paintings which are found in the natural caves in kopjes. This is from the Markwe Caves but even Bernard Mizeki's small kopjes had the occasional painting.
We often took our Alsatian, Marx, up there on one of our long walks with him. It was one of....
The ones at Bernard Mizeki seemed to have been formed in places where a hard rock, such as granite, had been intruded into a softer rock which had later been eroded away, leaving the standing boulders of granite.
Because they were steep and broken and thick with vegetation, one had to exercise some caution if one wanted to climb them. They had the reputation of being the haunt of snakes and leopards, though the only animals I can recall inhabiting them were the dassies, rock hyraxes, which cursed us for disturbing their peace.
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