the rivers Han and Tadong which flowed
through them to the Yellow Sea; but of course in this respect they
could not compare with Shiragi (Sinra) and Kara, of which latter
place the Japanese usually spoke as Mimana.

There can scarcely be any doubt that the Korean peninsula was largely
permeated with Chinese influences from a very early date, but the
processes which produced that result need not be detailed here. It
has been also shown above that, in the era prior to Jimmu,
indications are found of intercourse between Japan and Korea, and
even that Susanoo and his son held sway in Shiragi. But the first
direct reference made by Japanese annals to Korea occurs in the reign
of Sujin, 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki
Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a
quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take
the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had
travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of
Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed
to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to
proceed, so that the latter had to travel north and enter Japan via
Kehi-no-ura (now Tsuruga.)

Incidentally this narrative corroborates a statement made in Chinese
history (compiled in the Later Han era, A.D. 25-220) to the effect
that many Japanese provinces claimed to be under hereditary rulers
who exercised sovereign rights. Such, doubtless, was the attitude
assumed by several of the Imperial descendants who had obtained
provincial estates. The Emperor Sujin received the envoy courteously
and seemed disposed to grant his request, but his Majesty's death (30
B.C.) intervened, and not until two years later was the envoy able to
return. His mission had proved abortive, but the Emperor Suinin,
Sujin's successor, gave him some red-silk fabrics to carry home and
conferred on his country the name Mimana, in memory of Sujin, whose
appellation during life had been Mimaki.

These details furnish an index to the relations that existed in that
era between the neighbouring states of the Far East. The special
interest of the incident lies, however, in the fact that it furnishes
the first opportunity of comparing Japanese history with Korean. The
latter has two claims to credence. The first is that it assigns no
incredible ages to the sovereigns whose reigns it records. According
to Japanese annals