In the pages of Chinese and Korean history. There is, of course, no inherent reason for attributing to Korean history accuracy superior to that of Japanese history. But in China the habit of continuously compiling written annals had been practised for many centuries before Japanese events began even to furnish materials for romantic recitations, and no serious errors have been proved against Chinese historiographers during the periods when comparison with Japanese annals is feasible. In Korea's case, too, verification is partially possible. Thus, during the first five centuries of the Christian era, Chinese annals contain sixteen notices of events in Korea. If Korean history be examined as to these events, it is found to agree in ten instances, to disagree in two, and to be silent in four.* This record tends strongly to confirm the accuracy of the Korean annals, and it is further to be remembered that the Korean peninsula was divided during many centuries into three principalities whose records serve as mutual checks. Finally, Korean historians do not make any such demand upon our credulity as the Japanese do in the matter of length of sovereigns' reigns. For example, while the number of successions to the throne of Japan during the first four centuries of the Christian era is set down as seven only, making fifty-six years the average duration of a reign, the corresponding numbers for the three Korean principalities are sixteen, seventeen, and sixteen, respectively, making the average length of a reign from twenty-four to twenty-five years. It is, indeed, a very remarkable fact that whereas the average age of the first seventeen Emperors of Japan, who are supposed to have reigned from 660 B.C. down to A.D. 399, was 109 years, this incredible habit of longevity ceased abruptly from the beginning of the fifth century, the average age of the next seventeen having been only sixty-one and a half years; and it is a most suggestive coincidence that the year A.D. 461 is the first date of the accepted Japanese chronology which is confirmed by Korean authorities. *Aston's essay on Early Japanese History