28 JULY 1928, Page 19

John C. Fremont explored in the days when Indians were

still the enemies of all white men, making descents on their camps and collecting their scalps, and Mr. Alan Nevins tells the story well in Fremont : The West's Greatest Adventurer. (Harper, 2 vols. 45s.) To Fremont more than any other man was due the pacification and organization of California. He was a man of great energy and resolution. He had with him, too, the famous Kit Carson, skilled in Indian customs and master of woodcraft. Kit's quickness and intuition were proverbial. " For many consecutive years," he said, " I never slept under the roof of a house or gazed on the face of a white woman." Famous as an explorer, Fremont in his later career both as politician and as general must be called a failure.

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