Early map representing the southern flanks of the Everest range. The Royal Geographical Society's Map Room has a copy on fragile tracing paper, which was received October 24, 1898.

The pundit Sarat Chandra Das, traveling incognito on a yak, crosses the Donkhya Pass at 18,000 feet (5490 m) in 1879. The information that Chandra Das and the pundit codenamed “M H” recorded was all that was known about the approaches to Everest in the early years of the twentieth century.