The author uses the most precise words to describe the snail's path.
This excerpt has been taken from Heart of a Samurai, a historical novel written by Margi Preus in 2010. Precise words such as 'shiny', 'ribbon' and 'unfurling' have been used in the second sentence to describe the path of the snail, which is a small animal that has a wet body and moves very slowly. In other words, the author describes the way the path looks by establishing a comparison between the path and a shiny ribbon.