Under the British Raj, Hunza was a princely state ruled by a mir; today, it’s part of the modern state of Gilgit-Baltistan – administered by Pakistan but claimed by India as part of the disputed territory of Kashmir. Clarmont P Skrine, a British diplomat stationed in the central Asian borderlands during the 1920s, took this photograph, and he described the ‘primitive’ version of the sport played here in the book of his travels, Chinese Central Asia: ‘Never have I played such strange polo, nor on so romantic a ground... The ground is very long but (of necessity in a country like Hunza) narrow, and is bounded by four-foot walls of rough stones, off which the ball comes at remarkable angles.’ Polo is said to have originated in Persia during the sixth century BC as a training sport for cavalry, before spreading across Asia. The modern version emerged in India during the 1800s, where it was introduced to the British.

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