An immediate advance on Jellalabad was not, under such circumstances, to be contemplated for a moment. General Pollock had much to do, before he could think of forcing the Khybur Pass and relieving Jellalabad. The duties of a General are not limited to operations in the field. When Pollock reached Peshawur he found that the least difficult part of the labour before him was the subjugation of the Afreedi tribes. “Any precipitancy,” wrote the Commander-in-Chief some time afterwards, “on the part of a general officer panting for fame might have had the worst effect.”[31] To have advanced on Jellalabad in that month of February would have been to precipitate a strangling failure. Instead of flinging himself headlong into the pass, Pollock made his way to the hospitals. On the day after his arrival he visited the sick of the different regiments, inquired into their wants, conversed with their medical attendants, endeavoured to ascertain the causes of the prevalent sickness, and encouraged by every means at his command, by animating words and assuring promises, the dispirited and desponding invalids. Nor was there less to do out of the hospitals. The _morale_ of the troops was in the lowest possible state. It seemed, indeed, as though all their soldierly qualities were at the last gasp. The disaffection of the Sepoys broke out openly, and four out of the five regiments refused to advance. Nightly meetings of delegates from the different regiments of Wild’s brigade were held in camp; and the 26th Regiment of Native Infantry, which had come up with M’Caskill’s brigade, was soon invited to join the confederacy. In less than forty-eight hours after the arrival of that corps, active emissaries from the disaffected regiments were busy among the men, not only working upon their fears, but appealing to their religious feelings.[32] The taint seems to have reached even to some of the officers of Wild’s brigade, who did not hesitate openly to express at the mess-table the strongest opinions against a second attempt to force the Khybur, and to declare their belief that very few would ever return to Peshawur. One officer publicly asserted that it would be better to sacrifice Sale’s brigade than to risk the loss of 12,000 men on the march to Jellalabad; and another said that, if an advance were ordered, he would do his best to dissuade every Sepoy of his corps from again entering the pass.[33]