George Orwell's grandmother lived at Moulmein. In October 1922 he sailed on board S.S. Herefordshire to join the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. At the end of 1924 he was promoted to Assistant District Superintendent and posted to Syriam. In April 1926 he moved to Moulmein, where his grandmother lived. At the end of that year, he went to Katha, where he contracted Dengue fever in 1927. He was entitled to leave in England that year, and in view of his illness, was allowed to go home in July. While on leave in England in 1927, he reappraised his life and resigned from the Indian Imperial Police with the intention of becoming a writer. His Burma police experience yielded the novel Burmese Days (1934) and the essays 'A Hanging' (1931) and 'Shooting an Elephant' (1936).