Career
In 1657 he left for Batavia, after a training in the Dutch States Army, together with Hendrik van Rheede and Johan Bax van Herentals, who was appointed as governor of the Cape Colony. Till 1672 he was stationed on Ceylon and the Dutch Malabar. He served under Admiral Rijcklof van Goens in campaigns against the Portuguese on the west coast of India.
He was then appointed in Batavia because of the Franco-Dutch War.
Lostal fought against the sultans in Mataram (Java), Ternate and Bantam and seems to have been a skillful soldier. His adventures were used in a playwright by Onno Zwier van Haren.
Lostal lived in Utrecht from 1683 with his comagnon Hendrik van Rheede, a naturalist. In 1684 he sailed again to Batavia.
During his stay at Cape of Good Hope he made a trip to the north.
Together with Simon van der Stel he searched for medical or economical plants (1685). A valley north of Piketberg is named after Lostal. Lostal owned three microscopes and was helping the blind Rumphius, a German botanist on Ambon Island, to get his books written and published.
Lostal ordered Engelbert Kaempfer to do research on the components of Japanese rice paper.
He received 1200 books in many languages, like Hebrew, Arab, Persian and Portuguese, including Malay. Lostal was one of the first who collected such books in the Malay language.
