Went on holiday with half-brother Walter Evans to South Africa where they visited relatives at Graaff Reinet. After the holiday they returned to England, but Elijah subsequently travelled to SA again where he married Emily Probart and set up medical practice in Hanover, Cape Province.

Elijah was always frail and did not live to middle age. While in England he died in Mrs Clatworthy’s boarding house at Plymouth, possibly of tuberculosis.

A letter from his mother, Anne Evans, in 1866, stated Elijah is quite a young man tho’ but 17 years old. He is keeping steadily to his profession and bids fair to make a good Dentist. I have a new lower set of his making — made … fitting exactly. … He comes home once a month — is full of life and viva__ and a favorite with all. I think I have sent you his last photograph. The young man is rather inclined to be aristocratic in notions and would not like American equality at all.

Elijah's 1870 letter to his Uncle Alexander makes it clear that he had given up Dentistry and was studying Medicine at Middlesex Hospital. He was embarrassed about winning prizes as it made him unpopular with other students.