The Todar language is a very rude dialect of the old Canarese, and similar to that of the Badagas, another hill tribe. It is very poor in words conveying abstract ideas, as they have few notions beyond their buffaloes; their verbs have generally but one tense, and they express the future and past by means of adverbs of time.[405] There are many ancient cairns and _tumuli_ on the peaks of the Neilgherries, and it has been objected that they cannot be assigned to the ancestors of the Todars, because agricultural implements have been found in them, and these people never cultivate the ground. But it must be remembered that the Todars now extort _goodoo_ or tribute of grain from the other hill tribes, and that it is their only food. It must be inferred, therefore, that, before they discovered this easy mode of procuring food, and previous to the arrival of these weaker agricultural tribes on the hills, the Todars must have been their own cultivators. The hill people attribute all ancient ruins, of the origin of which they know nothing, to the Pandus, the famous heroes of Hindu tradition; and all that can be said of these Neilgherry cairns is that they are probably the work of an unknown extinct race, who practised Druidical rites.[406] We visited several of these remains of an ancient people. On the summit of the peak of Kalhutty, on the left hand of the road leading down the Seegoor ghaut to the Mysore plains, whence there is a grand view of mountain scenery, forest-clad slopes, and a wide expanse of country stretching away to the horizon, we found several old cairns. They were of great size, built of immense stones, and hollow in the centre. On another peak, called Ibex Hill, one side of which is a scarped cliff many hundreds of feet in height, overhanging the Seegoor ghaut, we also found two huge cairns, forming a circle about eight feet in diameter. There are many others in different parts of the hills, generally on the highest peaks, and iron spear-heads, bells, sepulchral urns with figures of coiled snakes, tigers, elephants, dogs, and birds on them, sickles and gold rings have been found buried under the piles of stones.