Béla looked about him for fresh resources to strengthen his authority and to add to his power. Pious Dominican monks, just then returning to the country from the regions of the Volga, told the tale that in the far east, along the banks of that river, they met with that fraction of the Hungarians who, during the period preceding the occupation of Hungary, had parted from their brethren near the Black Sea, where the latter continued their march westward. These accounts suggested to Béla the scheme of inviting the distant Eastern brothers to settle in his realm, hoping to augment the royal power by the aid of the new settlers, and to be thus enabled to resume successfully his contest with the proud lords. This scheme, however, failed, but the same circumstances which frustrated his plans as to his countrymen near the Volga, assisted him in obtaining aid from another quarter. The Mongol hordes, which came rushing from Central Asia toward the western world, swept in their impetuous onward march the Hungarians near the Volga out of existence; but the same wild current drove also the Kuns (Cumans) out of their habitations near the Black Sea, and the latter, after having roamed about homeless for a time, and then reached the frontiers of Hungary, begged of King Béla to allow them to come into the country and to settle there. Forty thousand families were in search of a new country, and forty thousand fierce warriors offered their services to King Béla. The people of Hungary were averse to receiving immigration on so large a scale, and the great lords loudly protested against the reception of the new comers, being convinced that the latter would only enhance the king’s power, and become instrumental in humbling their order. The king, however, considering the good of the country only, braved the opposition, and admitting Kuthen, king of the Kuns, with his people, into the land, assigned to them as their future abode the plain of the Theiss. Nor did he forget to make their conversion to Christianity a condition of their admission. The good effects Béla had anticipated from his new colony were slow in showing themselves, but the evil consequences of the recent settlement became manifest at once. The great numbers of this rude and barbarous element, who were as little disposed to live in fixed habitations as to embrace Christianity, soon disgusted the people by their lawlessness, violence, unruliness, and the devastations committed by them amongst the Hungarian population. The complaints of all classes, without distinction, which reached the king’s ear, became daily louder. Béla was unable to come to the relief of the people, for to have turned against the Kuns, as he was asked to do, would have shaken them in their fidelity to him. But by showing a preference for the new comers he also forfeited the affection of his old adherents, the good patriots who had firmly stood by him, hitherto, in all his troubles.