the public and the newspapers began to talk about a race across the continent of australia. could stuart, experienced and used to moving quickly, beat the better equipped, but very slow moving burke and wills expedition. after their failures with babbage and tolmer's expeditions, the south australian government now believed that stuart would succeed if he had enough support. they gave £2,500 to set up another expedition and provided ten armed men to protect stuart from any more attacks by the aborigines. chambers agreed to supply more horses and to pay stuart and kekwick's wages. in victoria, a policeman was sent off to tell burke to get going to the gulf of carpentaria as fast as possible, but burke had already heard about stuart's planned trip. burke divided his group in two, and leaving most of his supplies behind at menindee on the darling river, he headed north to cooper creek.