TOPOGRAPHIC TERMS OF SPANISH AMERICA 
297 
Kendall, who wrote the “ Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition,” * 
refers to it in describing the breaks or escarpment near Red river as fol- 
lows : “ The ^Mexicans who started with Albert Pike in his journey across 
the prairie spoke of this steppe and gave the name of Las Cejas, or the 
Eyebrows, to the singular range, [t] INIr P. appears to have passed to 
the south of the steppe.” 
The word ceja literally means a fringe, selvage, or border, and in to- 
])ography is used for the escarpment cliff of a mesa. I was agreeably 
surprised to find this word used in its literal sense as the escarpment or 
mesa in three widely separated localities on the United States Land Office 
maps of New Mexico — the Ceja de los Comancheros, the Cejas de Galisteo, 
the Cejitas Blanca. If there is any feature more conspicuous than others 
in the arid region of New Mexico it is these cejas, extending for miles and 
miles across the country as far as the eye can see. 
Cejita is the diminutive of ceja and is a very appropriate word for lines 
of low escarpments which are frequently met with. These are usually 
a secondaiy accompaniment of the larger cejas. For instance, where a 
mesa has a compound escarpment the uppermost cliff constitutes the pre- 
dominating ceja, wliile its lower slopes reveal smaller benches in terrace- 
like arrangement, the faces of which may appropriately be called cejitas. 
Puerto . — In the account of the Texan Santa Fe expedition is found a 
description of how the party wandered for miles along the mesa edges 
trying to find a place where they could descend the cejas of the northern 
edge of the Llano Estacado. Such a place, made by the flattening of the 
gradient of the caletas forming the headwater drainage, was called a 
puerto, which may be defined as a drainage notch through a ceja or sierra. 
Bajada . — The term bajada literally means a gradual descent. I find it 
used upon the maps of New Mexico and applied to a gradually descend- 
ing slope as distinguished from a more vertical escarpment. Example, 
the Bajada de los Comancheros. I take the liberty of proposing to limit 
the use of this term to extensive slopes of degradational and aggradational 
origin. J: Bajadas of the latter kind are composed of talus and often con- 
stitute extensive features, such as that shown west of the Rio Grande 
on the Santa Clara, New Mexico, sheet of the United States Geological 
Survey. This definition is made in order to distinguish between a bajada 
and a cuesta, the latter being a tilted structural plain. 
Eitmbrodura . — Literally the place where a chicken has scratched. In 
Featherstone’s account of the Santa F6 Expedition ^ he describes how the 
party became lost and entangled in the escabroduras lying eastward of 
the ceja of the Llano Estacado. These were nothing more than the in- 
deeply erode<l regions we know as Bad Lands. The ba.ses of nearly all 
the cejas grade into extensive regions of e.scabroduras. 
Jinlconen (balcony). — This name has lx;en specifically applied and is 
* Narrative of the Texiiri Santa F6 Expedition, Ijy George Wilkina Kendall. Vol. i, 
page 2.V>. London, ISI l. 
t It will be well to remember ttiat in all the old exploration.a tlie groat eecarpmentH of 
tlio meHaa are called mountains or ranges. 
t There siiotild be a term for eaeli of these kinds of slope. 
§ Journal of the Kuyal Geographical Society, I8 t.'l. 
