The asylum of Meer-en-Berg is pleasantly situated on a sandy plain close to the village of Bloomendall, within three miles of Haarlem, on the immediate borders of the Great Sand Dunes of the east side of North Holland. This plain, which extends more or less to the North Sea, is supposed to be one of the ancient mouths of the Rhine, now filled up, and close beside it is the ruin of the large castle of Brederode, the seat of the once powerful Counts of that name.