At the time of the Crimean War this vessel showed the Prussian flag at Constantinople for the first time in history, and it was also with her that Prince Adalbert experienced a rather grotesque adventure in the Mediterranean in 1856. In the previous year a German ship had been plundered by the Riff pirates, and the Prince, happening to be in those parts with the _Dantzig_, made a reconnaissance, in one of the ship's boats, of the coast of Cape Tree Forcas, where the outrage had occurred. The natives, as was their custom, fired on the party from the shore. Annoyed by this molestation, Prince Adalbert determined to teach the Arabs a severe lesson. Having manned and armed all his boats, he stormed the steep and rocky shore and planted the Prussian flag on the summit of the cliffs. His triumph was, however, a very brief one, for the enemy immediately returned to the attack, and drove the landing party back to the boats with the loss of seven killed and twenty-three wounded. Official panegyrists extol this rash escapade as an "heroic deed," and declare that it did much to raise the confidence of the young Prussian Navy. As the Riff pirates were no doubt also exultant over their victory, the affair must have been one of those rare encounters with the issue of which both sides were equally satisfied. The _Dantzig_ was sold a few years later in England, in the belief that her timbers were unsound, and was then passed on to Japan, where she was run ashore and burnt by her own crew during an engagement in the civil war. The problem of obtaining properly qualified personnel for the corps of naval officers was not less difficult to solve than that of building efficient warships. England would have been the natural source on which to draw for instructors, but for political reasons it was decided not to seek assistance from that most competent of all quarters, and the services of three officers of the Swedish Navy were secured. For similar reasons a Swedish naval constructor was engaged. A few years later, however, permission was asked and obtained for a number of cadets to learn their profession on British men-of-war.