 The Mandalay referred to in this poem was the sometime capital city of Burma, which was part of British India from 1886 to 1937, and a separate British colony from 1937 to 1948.It mentions the "old Moulmein pagoda", Moulmein being the Anglicised version of present-day Mawlamyine, in South eastern Burma, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Martaban.The British troops stationed in Burma travelled up and down the Irrawaddy River on paddle steamers run by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company (IFC).