artist friend and a dog to the Ladakh Valley. He visited Kutch in 1871–1872 but noted that his geology work kept him from making many observations. He noted wild cheetahs from the region and also what is now Stoliczka's bushchat. In 1873 he joined an expedition organized by Hume along with Valentine Ball to the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Last expedition His third and last expedition was the most important expedition (1873–1874) during the height of the "Great Game", the rivalry between the Russian and British empires. Eastern Turkestan (Kashgaria) was a buffer state of prime importance. The British launched an official diplomatic enterprise—the Second Yarkand Mission led by Thomas Douglas Forsyth and to Yakub Beg, the ruler of Chinese Turkestan. The mission included 350 support staff and 550 animals. The expedition also needed 6476 porters and 1621 horses and it is said that the Ladakh economy took four years to recover from the losses incurred. The seven sahibs on the mission, in addition to Forsyth and Stoliczka, were Thomas E. Gordon, John Biddulph, Henry Bellew, Henry Trotter, and R. A. Champman. The mission set out from Rawalpindi to Leh via Murree. The mission travelled past the Pangong Lake, Changchenmo and Karakash Valley onto Shahidulla and finally to Yarkand. They reached Kashgar in December 1873. On 17 March 1874 they began the return journey. They were to visit the Pamir and Afghanistan areas but could not do so due to the political situation and returned to India via Ladakh. On 16 June 1874 he had severe headaches as they crossed the Karakoram pass (5580 m). That night, he wrote.... ...upon this followed massive dolomitic limestone and this was overlain with blue shales. I must have a ramble in these limestones tomorrow. Captain Trotter reported that on the 18th "he started on horseback early in the morning to examine some rocks up the stream." He returned tired and complained of a headache. He breathed heavily and coughed all night. The native doctor diagnosed acute bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs and treated him with brandy mixed in a cough mixture. At 2 p.m. he drank some port wine and "his respiration grew slower and slower, and also did his pulse, and he finally breathed his last, dying so quietly that it was impossible to say at what precise instant he passed away". Stoliczka died on 19 June 1874 at Murgo in